[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 44 (Thursday, March 12, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H3376-H3378]
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 minority whip for yielding.
  On Monday the House will meet at 12:20 p.m. for morning hour and 2:00 
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 in the House, which is a 
change from the previously announced schedule.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of rules. A complete 
list of suspension bills, as is the custom, will be announced by the 
close of business tomorrow. In addition, we will consider H.R. 1388, 
the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, also known 
as the national service legislation.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman knows, there are 3 weeks remaining 
prior to the 2-week Easter recess. Since the last recess, this House 
and Congress have sent a $410 billion spending bill to the President. 
We have passed a bill imposing housing cramdown, and we just voted on a 
water quality bill, as well as one celebrating Pi Day.
  I would ask the gentleman if he intends to use the next 3 weeks to 
try and focus on the fear that exists out

[[Page H3377]]

there on the part of so many Americans about their jobs, and whether we 
can commit to focusing on preserving, protecting and creating jobs over 
the next 3 weeks?
  I yield further to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  In fact, we are going to continue, as we have been doing for every 
week that we have been in session in this Congress, to focus on jobs, 
focus on job creation.
  In fact, I would say to the gentleman, the three bills you mentioned, 
other than the Pi Day bill, were focused on jobs, focused on investing 
in our economy, in clean water, in education, in the safety of our 
public streets, keeping cops on the beat.
  So I say to my friend, the answer to your question is, we are going 
to continue to focus on jobs during the next 3 weeks as well. We think 
we have been doing that.
  We have had some disagreements on whether that was the way to do it, 
I understand that, but there is no doubt that we are going to continue 
to focus on jobs. One of those will be at some point in time before we 
leave for the Easter break. As the gentleman knows, it's our intention 
to bring up the budget as well.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  I would ask the gentleman, given this budget that he intends to bring 
to the floor, and the fact that, frankly, we feel that budget has an 
Achilles' heel, which is it increases taxes on the primary job creators 
in the country, which is small business. Can the gentleman tell us if 
there are other bills that are specifically focused on helping small 
business people get back into the game, so that instead of just raising 
taxes, redistributing wealth, we can actually focus on job creation, 
wealth creation, and get back on the road to prosperity?
  Mr. HOYER. One of the things I want to say in response to the 
gentleman's first question, in response to what he referred to as the 
cramdown, as the gentleman knows, there were three very important 
provisions which were not controversial, which is perhaps why I didn't 
mention them, notwithstanding the fact that many voted against the bill 
to help homeowners, to help those who were either at risk or may be at 
risk of losing their homes.
  The bankruptcy provision was to try to facilitate, in league with the 
very substantial reform proposals proposed by the administration, which 
would be under Fannie Mae and the Treasury Department, and under Sheila 
Baird's aegis, trying to help homeowners. So that bill, we think, was a 
very important part of the comprehensive homeowners affordability plan 
announced by the administration.
  With respect to helping small business, as the gentleman knows, we 
passed the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. As the gentleman also knows, 
notwithstanding the fact that that was not supported by any on your 
side of the aisle, it had very substantial tax cuts in there for 
exactly the people you are talking about. That is, small businesses.
  So we think that, as you do, that small businesses are a vitally 
important part of creating jobs and creating economic opportunity in 
this country, and we have been supporting policies to assist them.
  The gentleman and I were at the fiscal summit together, we went down 
to the health summit. We weren't in the same breakout group, but one of 
the things we are looking at, as you know, is trying to help small 
business with health care costs. That's a major challenge confronting 
the small business community.
  Our friends at NFIB, as you know, have shared that interest. Now we 
haven't gotten to a specific proposal, so we will have to see what 
happens when we get there. We certainly share your concern, but we also 
believe we have been acting toward the end the gentleman suggests, and 
that is assisting small businesses to grow and to create jobs and to 
stay in business.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the gentleman's attention to 
several news reports lately that have alluded to Chairman Obey and 
others in the majority caucus preparing a second stimulus bill.
  I know the chairman was quoted in CongressDaily this morning as 
saying that it is spectacularly unreasonable to expect to see the 
stimulus package that we passed produce any action any time soon.
  Further, we see that the economist, Paul Krugman, thought and has 
written that the first stimulus bill that passed has failed because it 
didn't spend enough.
  Now we know that the economist, Mark Zandi, has met with the Majority 
Caucus this week and said that the stimulus that passed would fall 
short of the goals that were originally put out there to create 3.5 
million jobs.
  So I have asked the gentleman, should we expect in the House for 
there to be another stimulus bill and, if so, would you include some of 
the Republican proposals that were in our plan that were focused on job 
creators, focused on small businesses, entrepreneurs and the self-
employed?
  I yield further to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I presume the gentleman is referring to the job creators 
that we had in our bill.
  As you know, we believe that the substitute that was offered to the 
recovery and reinvestment package that was defeated in a bipartisan way 
created--and there is a difference in this--our perception of this is 2 
million less jobs than the bill that we offered and that was passed, 
which we think either created or saved 3.5 million jobs.
  Having said that, you asked about an additional relief package. I 
note you quoted the newspapers as talking about Mr. Zandi, who was one 
of Mr. McCain's advisors during the course of the last campaign.
  But I also noted in the paper that you are also quoted as saying, 
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor didn't rule out the idea of a second 
stimulus package and said Wednesday he would be willing to sit down 
with the White House and congressional Democrats to discuss any new 
emergency spending proposals.

  I appreciate that offer, and I want to show the gentleman that when 
and if--and I have no reason to believe, by the way, that Mr. Obey is 
doing anything as reported in the paper that he might be doing, I have 
no reason to believe he is doing that--but I want you to know that in 
light of your interest in sitting down, that I share that interest, and 
we will do that.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to, for the record, set it straight. My 
comments were that if we are going to get serious about focusing on job 
creation, yes, I would support a bill that would provide relief to the 
small business people of this country, so we can get the entrepreneurs 
back into the game of putting capital to work so we can not only save 
the jobs that we have got, we can begin to create new ones for our 
families and our communities.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman if he would respond to 
some of the reports that there may be a bill dealing with stem cell 
research coming to the floor next week, and whether he could confirm 
that and, if so, what is the substance of that bill.
  I yield further to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.
  First, in a very short response to your question, I do not expect the 
legislation dealing with stem cells to be coming to the floor next 
week.
  I do, however, respond to the gentleman that we are considering 
bringing to the floor legislation, similar, in terms of specifics, very 
similar, if not the same, as the bill that passed this House on a 
bipartisan vote in the last Congress.
  We believe that that will be consistent with the President's action 
this week dealing with the executive order on stem-cell research.
  We believe this research provides real hope for some of mankind's 
most difficult diseases and afflictions and challenges. We think the 
research is promising.
  On the other hand, we want to make sure that it does, in fact, do 
what we say we want to do. As you know, when we passed legislation like 
that before, we made it very clear that human cloning was not something 
that the Congress supported and that we were specifically prohibiting 
that.
  So in answer to your question, I would think the legislation would be 
very much along those same lines. But we do not expect it to be here 
this week. I want to tell the gentleman it may be, however, on the 
floor prior to our leaving for the recess.

[[Page H3378]]

  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I know that the gentleman is aware, as all of us are, 
about the tremendous job losses that we have experienced in America of 
late, 650,000 plus jobs just last month.
  There is an announcement yesterday that we all read about, that the 
card check bill was introduced. Along with that introduction, there was 
a new nonpartisan study that was published that predicts that passage 
of card check legislation will result in the immediate loss of 600,000 
jobs.
  So I would ask the gentleman, number one, when he expects to bring 
that card check bill to the floor, and if, in the interim, if he is 
considering that if the Senate is to act, and we are to act in these 
economic times, why would we be doing that if we know, through 
nonpartisan studies issued, that it's a job killer? Why would we be 
bringing that to the floor?
  I yield further to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. First of all, let me 
respond. We don't know that. Somebody reported that. We don't know that 
at all and, very frankly, we don't accept that figure. We don't accept 
the figure that we will, in fact, lose jobs.
  We on this side of the aisle feel very strongly that the working men 
and women in this country have the right under law to organize and to 
bargain collectively for wages and benefits and working conditions. We 
think that is inherent in the rights, in the free market.
  Very frankly, I would tell my friend that I have traveled, as he has, 
in many parts of the world, and rarely have I seen a successful 
democracy that didn't have a free trade union movement. So we feel very 
strongly about that. We feel very strongly about the right to organize, 
and that means that it is the employee's choice of how to organize.
  Now, having said all that, let me also say that we have observed that 
there has been, in many ways, a relationship between the decline in 
union membership and a decline in the buying power of the American 
worker.
  And the greatest disparity between what average workers make and what 
the bosses make now exist in our country to a greater extent than any 
other place in the world. We think that's a problem.
  Consumerism is what drives this economy. Consumerism is down, incomes 
have been frozen, and you see, in my opinion, some of that result.
  I don't, by any stretch of the imagination, want to say that the 
reason that we are in the decline that we are in today, and facing the 
challenge that we are today, is a direct result of the fact that union 
membership is down.
  But, certainly, I believe that one of the results is the reduction in 
the buying power of average Americans in this country.
  Now, having said that, we passed this bill. We passed it pretty 
handily. We passed it in the last Congress, and it's our expectation 
that the Senate is going to be dealing with this legislation. They have 
not yet considered it; and it is my belief that we want to see whether 
they can pass it. We believe they can.

                              {time}  1445

  We are going to be interested in what action they take.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  For the record, any democracy has also in it the elections that 
afford one the right to a private or secret ballot, which this bill 
completely takes away from the workers of this country.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. Not yet, Mr. Speaker. I would say again that our economy 
is not just built on consumerism, our economy is built on investments 
and, frankly, the rebuilding of this economy will take place with job 
creation. And if we know that card check is a job-killer, folks across 
this country have got to be scratching their heads right now, wondering 
what in the world is Washington doing passing a piece of legislation 
that has been proven to kill jobs, not promote jobs.
  Mr. HOYER. Let me say that, as I said before, we don't believe it's a 
job-killer, number one. But, number two, the gentleman and I have a 
disagreement factually as to what the bill does. We don't believe this 
kills the right of the employees to have a free election at all. 
Period.
  We believe in fact the employee has that choice. The employee has the 
absolute right to respond, ``No, I don't want to sign your card. Let's 
have an election. And I will sign it for that purpose, and that purpose 
only, to give you the 30 percent you need to get the election.''
  I think I'm right on 30 percent. But, in any event, we believe this 
is the employees' choice of how they want to organize, not the 
employer's choice.
  So we are not and did not by passage of this legislation take away 
from the employees the right to have an election if they so choose.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  One remaining question, Mr. Speaker. Can the gentleman inform us as 
to whether the public lands bill will be brought back up under a rule 
in this House.
  Mr. HOYER. We think the public lands bill that failed just by two 
votes yesterday is a very good bill. Overwhelming support. Essentially 
two-thirds of this House supported it. Two-thirds of the Senate 
supported it. Actually, I think it was probably even more than that.
  In any event, we believe that bill is a very, very good bill. We are 
hopeful that a number of your members will conclude that maybe they 
should have voted for it. We will see on that.
  So the answer to your question is that we may bring it up either by 
rule or by suspension, but we want to see this bill pass. Having said 
that, let me say that Leader Reid, the senior leader of the Senate, has 
indicated that he is going to file for cloture on that bill in the 
Senate tomorrow. So they may well move on it as well.
  There are a number of options for us to pursue. As you will not be 
surprised, we are going to pursue the one we think is most successful.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, and I yield back.

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