[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 178 (Thursday, December 3, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H13495-H13499]
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. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland, the majority 
leader, for the purpose of announcing next week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning-
hour debate and noon for legislative business, with votes postponed 
until Tuesday. On Tuesday the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning-
hour debate and 10 a.m. for legislative business. Members are advised 
votes could occur as early as 10 a.m. on Tuesday.
  On Wednesday and Thursday the House will meet at 10 a.m. for 
legislative business, and on Friday the House will meet at 9 a.m. for 
legislative business.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The 
complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of 
business tomorrow.
  In addition, we will consider H.R.--I don't have the number yet, of 
the tax extenders bill of 2009, and H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform 
and Consumer Protection Act of 2009.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, since this is our first colloquy following Thanksgiving 
break, I would like to ask the gentleman if he could give the Members a 
sense of what legislation perhaps that we will be voting on for the 
remainder of this month. And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. First of all, let me say to the gentleman that it is my 
hope that we will adjourn the first session of the Congress from the 
House's perspective by the 18th. With respect to the bills that we are 
considering, obviously we have seven appropriation bills that have not 
yet been enacted. The continuing resolution expires on the 18th of 
December.
  It is my hope that before that time we will have provision for the 
passage of all seven of the appropriation bills, either individually, 
which may be difficult because the Senate has not passed three of those 
bills on its floor. In one form or another we will have all seven of 
those bills passed prior to the 18th.
  The Speaker, Leader Reid, and I all want to avoid another continuing 
resolution, which we think is not the best way to move forward. We are 
hopeful that we can accomplish that.
  In addition, the regulatory reform bill you heard will be next week, 
the tax extenders. We have the unemployment insurance. We have the 
COBRA extension. Both of those expire on December 31. We have the 
PATRIOT Act, the provisions of which expire on December 31. We want to 
address that. We have got highway reauthorization, which also expires 
on December 31. We want to address that. And we have, I'm sure, other 
bills that we will be considering.
  As you know, I know you're happy about it, I'm happy about it, Iran 
sanctions will be on the calendar as well, on the Suspension Calendar 
the week after next.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. And I know I'm joined 
by the gentlelady from Florida in thanking you very much for your work 
on the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act and bringing that to the 
floor.

[[Page H13496]]

  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. If the gentleman will yield.
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the bipartisan work. I see the ranking member 
of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my friend, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, who has 
worked very hard on this as well with Mr. Berman. I'm pleased this is 
coming. It's very important that we send a very strong message as we 
see the Iranian Government and the President say they are going to do 
one thing, but apparently never do it. So I think it's appropriate that 
we act.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman, I note that he did announce 
that we will be considering H.R. 4173, the financial regulation bill, 
and perhaps seven appropriations bills. I don't know which form that 
would be in, whether it would be separately or in an omnibus form; but, 
nonetheless, all of these are incredibly large measures costing 
billions of dollars of taxpayer money, stretching over thousands of 
pages.
  My question, Mr. Speaker, is, What is the gentleman's intention as to 
the period of time which Members and the public will have to review 
these bills prior to the Members voting on them? And does that mean 
that we will still be consistent with the gentleman's representations 
on other bills prior to this session that we would have 72 hours for 
consideration and review of those bills as well as any manager's 
amendment and self-executing amendments in a rule?
  And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  He is correct, I have made that representation; and I want to try to 
accomplish that objective. As the gentleman also knows, on both sides 
we have experienced this issue, at the end of a session, as I fervently 
hope we are closely achieving, at the end of a session obviously when 
you're having conference reports, it's not necessarily possible to do 
that if you can't get the conference reports moved quickly enough by 
the time you want to adjourn.
  However, having said that, the gentleman is correct, the regulatory 
reform bill that is going to be reported out by the committee has been 
reported out, will be available this evening, and will be available--I 
don't expect to have that on the floor any sooner than Tuesday of next 
week.

                              {time}  1445

  So there will be plenty of time to review that piece of legislation. 
As you know, that has had extensive hearings. Two of the bills that are 
included within the framework of that bill we've already passed, as you 
know. So for that bill there will be a lot of time.
  With respect to the omnibus that you referred to, we have discretely, 
individually, considered each one of those bills. They've passed the 
House. The Senate and the House have reached agreement, I think, or 
hopefully, are on the verge of reaching agreement on those bills 
individually so that they can be included. The Senate, as I pointed 
out, has not considered three of the bills on the floor, and I'm not 
sure, given their focus on health care, that they will be able to do 
so. So from that standpoint, they would be included in a conference 
report as opposed to considered on the Senate floor. They've been 
considered on the House floor, and we will give as much notice as we 
possibly can on those. But the good news is we've considered those 
individually on the floor, so the overwhelming majority of those bills 
are well-known to Members.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. And I do realize that the House 
has considered its version, although we all know that when they come 
back from conference especially, many of the Members on both sides of 
the aisle have some concerns about earmarks and others, which would, I 
think, warrant the time to review these bills. In the same light, Mr. 
Speaker, it is the concern of many that we have an opportunity to look 
at any manager's amendment or self-executing amendments in the rules 
that are presented to the body and our having time to review that as 
well. And I would just make that note.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman, does he expect a final health 
care bill this month? And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I will choose my words carefully. As opposed to expect, I 
hope that there will be a bill. Clearly, the Senate is debating that 
bill. We believe that this is one of the most important bills that any 
Member will have considered during the course of their tenure in this 
House, including myself, and I've been here, as you know, some time. 
The Senate is debating those bills now. Senator Reid has had great 
difficulty getting this bill to move along in an orderly fashion, 
which, I think, makes it impossible to predict when the Senate will be 
able to pass it. I can tell you that I know that Leader Reid is hopeful 
that this bill will be considered over the next 10, 12 days, and that 
they will be able to pass it prior to the 18th of December. And I'm 
hopeful that they can as well.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman on that. And as a followup to that, 
Mr. Speaker, I know there's been some discussion or reports that the 
Senate may be scheduled to be in session past the Christmas holiday, 
and I was wondering, Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman expected that to 
impact the House's schedule after Christmas. And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. It's my expectation 
that it will not. But I want to give this caveat. If, in fact the 
Senate passes its health care reform bill early enough so that we may 
have a conference and conclude a conference so that at some time in 
December we could pass a conference report, with that caveat--now 
whether that will happen or not, obviously I am not able to predict 
that, but other than that circumstance, it's my expectation that we 
will not be in the week of the 21st or the week of the 28th.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for that.
  Mr. HOYER. Nor for that matter, as the schedule, as you know, 
reflects, the week after the 1st, which is the 3rd, I guess.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would 
ask the gentleman does he expect to vote on increasing the Nation's 
debt limit this month? And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. Not only do I expect it, my belief is that it's mandatory 
that we do so. Obviously, the United States has never defaulted on its 
debt, and to do so would cause international disruption in the 
financial markets, further exacerbating an already difficult economic 
situation for our country and for countries around the world. So it is 
not only my expectation, but I believe it is absolutely essential that 
we do that. As the gentleman knows, we have passed already, in this 
House, an extension of the debt. The Senate has not passed that at this 
point in time, but I do expect it to be included in one of the pieces 
of legislation that we consider. I think it is absolutely essential 
and, in my view, whether you like the debt or don't--I mean, none of us 
like it--it would be irresponsible for the Congress not to pass a debt 
extension for debts that it has incurred. I yield back.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask a 
followup to that comment. Does the gentleman expect us to have an up-
or-down vote on the increase of the debt limit, or, if not, if it is a 
part, as he suggested, of another piece of legislation, which 
legislation that would be? And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. Well, that has not been finally decided at this point in 
time. We'll have to wait to see what the Senate feels it can do in one 
of the conferences that we have. As the gentleman probably knows, under 
Senate procedure, while they're considering the health bill, the only 
thing they can rise for, without the necessity to have a 60 vote to go 
back into consideration of the health bill, is a conference report. So 
my expectation is it will be in a conference report.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to turn to 
the question of whether this House will be dealing with what has been 
reported, a second stimulus bill. And I know that we have been reading 
much about the White House job summit today. There's been a lot of 
reports in the press about the majority's meeting on a second stimulus 
bill, and I'd like to ask the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, if he could 
clarify the timing, the content and the cost of a proposed second 
stimulus bill. And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. Well, the gentleman, of course, wants to use language that 
we're not using. We're focused on jobs. Stimulus is a broader reach, 
frankly,

[[Page H13497]]

than we are looking at. We do believe, though, as the gentleman has 
expressed on a number of occasions, that jobs is the focus. And we are 
looking at legislation which will help to create jobs, expand our 
economy, ensure our growth.

  As the gentleman knows, the CBO released their report on the Recovery 
Act which we passed and its impact on the economy and employment in the 
third quarter, which was the first quarter in 8 that we had grown the 
GDP. As the gentleman knows, that was not the case in 2008, of course. 
CBO estimates that because of the Recovery Act, 600,000 to 1.6 million 
jobs, more Americans had jobs as a result of the Recovery Act. The GDP, 
according to CBO, was 1.2 percent to 3.2 percent higher than it would 
have been if we had not passed the Recovery Act. And the unemployment 
rate was nine-tenths of a point lower than it would have been.
  Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody's Economy.com recently said 
the stimulus is doing what it was supposed to do. It is contributing to 
ending the recession. In my view, without the stimulus, the GDP would 
still be in the negative as opposed to positive. Unemployment would be 
above 11 percent, and there are a little over 1.1 million more jobs out 
there as of October than there would have been without the stimulus.
  Having said that, you and I both agree not enough has been done. 
Notwithstanding the fact, essentially, there has been, with 2-months' 
exception with a little glitch-up, a straight-line decline in the 
number of loss of jobs per month from the high of the last month of the 
last administration of 747,000 lost. As you know, it's less than 
190,000 lost. We don't have the report on Friday, but it's less than 
that, I think, which is progress, but it's not success. Success will be 
when we start gaining jobs.
  In that context, I tell my friend that we are in fact looking at ways 
and means to spur greater job creation, allow small businesses to 
expand, get additional credit, as well as continuing to assist those 
who have lost their jobs and are in need of assistance. But I cannot, 
at this point in time, give you the specifics.
  You have correctly observed the administration, because of its 
concern about job creation, is having a summit or a forum today to seek 
advice from experts on the economy, experts in the business field, and 
we certainly are going to look to them as well, talking to them. I want 
to also say to my friend that I would be more than pleased to receive 
from you and Members on your side of the aisle suggestions that you 
might have to accomplish a greater growth of jobs in our economy. I 
yield back.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I certainly appreciate that extension of an 
offer to allow us to, once again, proffer our ideas. As the gentleman 
may know, I did speak out yesterday with a list of what I call a no-
cost jobs plan, and I am happy to forward that to the gentleman. I have 
made a similar type of request of the White House, and I think have 
gotten a response that they too may be willing to consider some of the 
Republican solutions to the current crisis that people are feeling 
across this country.
  Mr. Speaker, I would say that I am somewhat heartened to hear the 
gentleman talk about the ineffectiveness of the first stimulus bill. 
The gentleman did say that the term ``stimulus'' was a little broader 
than what they're looking at now. And in my opinion, I thought that the 
definition of a stimulus bill was to create jobs. So if the gentleman 
now is agreeing with me that the creation of jobs did not hit the mark 
the way that was promised on the first stimulus bill, that we do need 
to finally focus on job creation, that gives me a lot of confidence, 
Mr. Speaker, because at least we're now talking about the same thing. 
And along those lines, again, I am thankful that the gentleman asked 
for our solutions, and we're going to proffer those.
  But I do want to suggest that we can, and there are some commonsense 
things we can sit down and probably agree on that we could do right now 
that wouldn't cost the taxpayers anything, and we wouldn't have to be 
continuing to mortgage the future of our children. I think both of us 
can agree, Mr. Speaker, that both sides have done their share to dig 
the hole of incurring too much debt for this country. Enough is enough. 
And I do think that we have and will offer solutions that will begin to 
arrest that trend, and at the same time focus on job creation.
  Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. I will. And I would like to ask one more point, and then 
I will yield. If we are talking about finally shifting to the mode, Mr. 
Speaker, of job creation, I'd like to ask the gentleman, has there been 
any discussion in his caucus about perhaps holding back on some of the 
measures that are being discussed, such as the financial regulatory 
reform bill coming to the floor next week, because there is a study 
recently released by the University of Chicago, University College 
London, and George Mason University economists, which said that this 
package of reform bills coming out of the Financial Services Committee 
will reduce consumer borrowing by at least 2.1 percent and reduce new 
jobs by 4.3 percent. And essentially, the study comes to the conclusion 
that interest rates will rise by 141 basis points, which will yield the 
loss of over a million jobs over the next 5 years. So if we are 
concerned about job creation, why are we moving forward with such a 
measure? And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Let me start at the 
beginning of his statement, that I might facetiously say was written by 
Lewis Carroll, who wrote Alice in Wonderland, of course, when he says 
that I characterized the stimulus package, which I did not; I have 
characterized the Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which the CBO said 
gained us 600,000 to 1.4 million jobs.

                              {time}  1500

  The gentleman likes to do this. He has done it a number of times. He 
says, ``Finally we're talking about jobs.'' As a matter of fact, in 
February we passed legislation--with no help, frankly, from your side--
which, in fact, CBO says has created up to 1.4 million new jobs in 
America. In addition, we believe we've saved a lot of jobs in America 
as well. We are not where we want to be.
  The gentleman also indicates--and I would agree--that both sides of 
the aisle have dug the hole deeper on the deficit. I say with all 
respect to my friend, we had an administration that was in office for 8 
years, the Clinton administration. I would remind my friend--I am sure 
he is familiar with these statistics--that he inherited a $292 billion 
deficit from George Bush I. He reduced that deficit that year; the next 
year he reduced it further; the third year he reduced it even further; 
the fourth year he reduced it even further; and the fifth, sixth, 
seventh and eighth years, the Clinton administration economic program 
took us into surplus--the only administration in your lifetime, and I 
am much older than you are--the only administration in my lifetime that 
had 4 years of surplus, and the only administration in my lifetime that 
ended their 8 years with a net surplus.
  So I would disagree with my friend that we contributed. In fact, your 
administration under Mr. Bush inherited a $5.6 trillion surplus. Who 
said so? President Bush said so in 2001. We dissipated that into a $10 
trillion deficit--arguably the largest turnaround of any nation in the 
world, certainly in terms of dollars. I'm not sure on percentage. Some 
countries, third-world countries, have pretty bad experiences. But to 
turn around a $5.6 trillion surplus by $15 trillion and turn it into a 
$10 trillion deficit and the worst economy we've seen in three-quarters 
of a century under the economic program that was pursued by your side 
of the aisle, very frankly I'm not going to take responsibility for 
that, I tell my friend with all due respect.
  This administration was confronted with the worst economic situation 
of any administration since Franklin Roosevelt. We have been trying 
with, I think, real focus, and in some respects real courage, because 
some of the things we did were very tough. You, I think, joined us when 
we responded to your administration, the Bush administration, and said 
through Secretary Paulson and Mr. Bernanke, the country is in crisis, 
and if we do not act and act decisively, we may go into a depression.
  You will recall that my side of the aisle responded to the Republican 
President, the chief executive of our

[[Page H13498]]

country, who said we were in crisis, and we responded, and 142 of us 
voted on a bill that nobody wanted to vote for in order to preclude us 
going into crisis. Your party, unfortunately, did not support your 
President, as you recall, in a majority sense on that particular vote 
in September of 2008.
  Luckily, we came back. We had a failure; luckily we came back. 
Notwithstanding the unpopularity of that bill, we did contribute to 
stabilizing this economy. It was a tough vote. Americans are angry 
about it; we're angry about it. Bailing out people who were 
extraordinarily fiscally irresponsible--those same people that we want 
to regulate next week to make sure they are not subject to the 
regulatory neglect that they were subjected to for 8 years when the 
administration's policy was to simply get out of the way, not to 
regulate, not to oversee, and we saw an extraordinary financial 
meltdown.
  So I will tell my friend with all due respect, I do not accept his 
premise that we haven't been talking about jobs. I have not read the 
reports to which he referred, but I do not accept his premise that in 
fact making sure that these big financial institutions operate in a way 
that minimizes risk--not just to them; they can afford the risk. They 
sock away money somewhere; the people who couldn't afford the risk who 
saw their 401(k)s go into the tank, saw their retirement put at risk.
  So I tell my friend that next week, we are going to adopt legislation 
hopefully that will try to ensure that America does not go down that 
road again. Just as Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s responded with 
regulation to ensure that the stock market excesses and betting, on 
which people lost, did not reoccur and very frankly has kept us pretty 
stable. But, unfortunately, a lot of the regulatory neglect--which I 
want to make clear was not only in the Bush administration; there was 
some in the previous administration--we ought to have learned our 
lesson. I would hope you would join with us in adopting this regulatory 
reform package which will protect consumers and ensure responsible 
behavior on behalf of those whom we entrust with large parts of our 
national wealth and the health of our economy.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  And I would say he would agree with me that since the beginning of 
the 111th, priority one for this Nation has been job creation.
  Mr. HOYER. That's correct.
  Mr. CANTOR. And the facts are the facts. The stimulus bill was 
brought to this floor with the promise that it would stop unemployment 
from exceeding 8 percent. We are now at over 10 percent national 
unemployment. The facts are the facts.
  Under this administration, the deficit has tripled since the last 
administration left. That is the facts. The gentleman points out, CBO 
says that we've created X number of jobs. I would say to the gentleman, 
while you have people across this country--10.2 percent of the 
workforce being out of work--there is no way that anyone in this 
country would believe CBO when it says the economy is better. That's 
the fact.
  And so if we're going to be about job creation, my simple point is 
this about bringing the package of financial regulatory reform bills to 
the floor. I don't doubt the gentleman's intention to try and do the 
right thing. But the reality is this is a case where we're doing the 
wrong thing for the right reason. This bill impacts negatively the job 
creators. We know this bill will increase interest rates 141 basis 
points, which means the loss of an additional million-plus jobs over 
the next 5 years.

  So in that vein, I would ask the gentleman again, if we are to see 
our way to work together, let's relieve the harm. This bill adds to the 
harm. In the same way, I would ask the gentleman, there is continued 
talk of the bill otherwise known as Card Check. If I've heard it once, 
I think all Members have, from small businesses and large, the job 
creators, Please, please don't pass that bill because that will create 
a huge drain on job creation.
  So I would ask the gentleman, is there any sense in his caucus that 
maybe now in times of high unemployment is not the time to bring up 
Card Check?
  Mr. HOYER. Who mentioned that? Do you have any other windmills that 
you want to tilt at?
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would like to come to my 
district and talk to the businesses there, I think I could gather up 
many individuals who have put their entire life's investment savings on 
the line and don't want to see Washington or this Congress continue to 
threaten the very existence of those businesses.
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  We got off your premise pretty quickly--to another bill that's in the 
Senate--my view is because we did create jobs, CBO says we created 
jobs, and for the gentleman to say the economy is not in better shape 
today than it was when we took over from the last administration, I 
would remind the gentleman, 747,000 jobs were lost in the last month of 
the Bush administration; 3.8 million jobs were lost in the last year of 
the Bush administration as opposed to the last year of the Clinton 
administration, comparing the last two administrations, 1.9 million 
jobs were added.
  I suggest to the gentleman what we see on this regulatory reform bill 
is exactly the philosophy that was brought under the Bush 
administration. If we simply get out of the way, don't bother anybody, 
just get out of the way, Government, take the referees off the field 
and all the players will play fairly, my experience in life has not 
been that. My experience in life is when you get the referees off the 
field, somebody leaves the line about a second before the ball is 
hiked, and people lose. And that is what happened. The SEC didn't 
regulate, the FDIC didn't regulate the way it should have, the 
administration didn't regulate the way it should have. And what went 
wrong? The financial community went amok.
  Mr. Greenspan came before the Congress of the United States and said, 
I made a mistake. I thought people would act consistent with a fair 
evaluation of the risk they were willing to take. And Mr. Greenspan 
said, I was wrong. In fact, they did not. And they incurred risk. And 
who paid the price? All of us paid the price. All of us as taxpayers 
paid the price at Secretary Paulson's request, Republican Secretary of 
the Treasury, to try to sustain this economy not going into a 
depression.
  So I disagree with my friend that I haven't addressed the issue of 
jobs. We have. I disagree with the gentleman when he says 1.4 million 
jobs. Well, we're still losing jobs. We are. But we're losing--and none 
of the statistics, by the way, that I have intoned this afternoon has 
the gentleman rejected as being accurate: 747,000 jobs lost during the 
last month of the Bush administration. Less than 190,000 this month.
  Is that where we want to be? Of course it's not. We want to create 
190,000. We want to create 500,000 jobs. We want to get people back to 
work. But the first thing we had to do was to reverse the extraordinary 
decline that we inherited in January of this year. I think we've done 
that.
  I will tell my friend that when those who open up their retirement 
funds that are invested in mutual funds or something else and find that 
their retirement funds are up 57 percent from the low point shortly 
after this administration took office, they're going to think that's 
progress. Is it where they want to be? No. They want to be back at a 
hundred percent of where they were. They're not there yet. We need to 
keep working, and that's why we're considering a jobs bill before we 
leave here. If we can put one together, hopefully in a bipartisan 
fashion, we will do so.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  My purpose in bringing up this notion that we still have this Card 
Check bill out there is to demonstrate the fact that there really is a 
disconnect as far as doing what we say and follow what I do. Because if 
we're serious about relieving the pain on job creators, if we're 
serious about getting Americans back to work, we wouldn't be 
necessarily bringing the wrong bills to the floor for the right reason, 
which is my point, Mr. Speaker.
  No one is quibbling with intention here. I think that I would agree 
with the gentleman that there is a sense in America that there is not a 
level playing field at giving people a fair shot at their returns on 
Wall Street or a fair

[[Page H13499]]

shot in terms of heavy regulations in hand coming from Washington.
  So we can all agree that we need to make the environment better for 
job creators and people who want to jump in and take risks. But the 
financial regulatory reform package that is being brought to the floor 
just as the Card Check bill that's still being spoken of around here, 
those are job killers. We ought to at least relieve the harm so that 
people we're relying on to create jobs can get back to work to do that. 
That was simply my point, Mr. Speaker.
  In closing, Mr. Speaker, I would just note for the gentleman that 2.8 
million Americans have lost their jobs since the passage of the 
majority's first stimulus bill; and the Nation's debt now stands at 
over $12 trillion.
  I thank the gentleman for his time, and I yield back.

                          ____________________