[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 30 (Thursday, March 4, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H1148-H1151]
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.
Mr. Speaker, on Monday the House is not in session. On Tuesday, the
House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for
legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday
and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business.
And on Friday, if needed, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative
business. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules.
A complete list of suspension bills will be announced by close of
business tomorrow, as is the custom.
In addition, Mr. Speaker, we will consider H. Con. Res. 248, the
Afghanistan war powers resolution introduced by Mr. Kucinich, and we
will also consider H. Res. 1031, impeaching G. Thomas Porteous, Jr.,
judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of
Louisiana, for high crimes and misdemeanors. It is also possible there
will be further action on the jobs agenda, which depends on what the
Senate or the House has coming out of committee or out of the Senate.
Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I want to ask the
gentleman if he can give us some better indication of what he means by
the jobs agenda.
Mr. HOYER. We believe that the number one priority for us is to
continue to grow the economy so that we will create jobs in this
economy. As the gentleman knows, my perception is we have gone from
losing an average of 726,000 jobs in the last 3 months of the Bush
administration, to the last 3 months of losing, on average, 35,000
jobs. That is 95 percent in the right direction, but we need to
continue to create jobs.
As you know in the bill that was just passed, which was passed in a
bipartisan fashion in the Senate and to some degree here, we are trying
to encourage the hiring of those who are unemployed through giving tax
credits, and also tried to spur investment by giving businesses the
right to write off items. We also ensure the continuation of the
Highway Act; and in addition to that, as you know, we provided for a
less expensive way for communities to expand public works and hire
people to do that, public buildings and construction of public
facilities.
So when I say the agenda, that was obviously a part of the agenda. We
still are very concerned about lending, capital being available to
small, particularly, but medium-sized businesses as well. The Senate is
considering a jobs bill now, as you know, with a number of component
parts. So when I talk about the jobs agenda, I am talking about ways
and means and efforts to grow the economy and create jobs.
Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
The gentleman refers to some areas that I hope he and the majority
would work with the minority on in trying to do exactly as he stated,
which is to create an environment for small businesses to create jobs.
As the gentleman just saw in the vote taking place on the floor today,
there were 35 members of his caucus who voted against the so-called
jobs bill that was on the floor today, perhaps indicating that the
gentleman may want to work with us as we have been continuing to
propose tax cuts for small businesses, not necessarily connected with
what kind of hires that the businesses should do, and not necessarily
connected with some type of targeted credit that may or may not fit
with the business model of any particular small business, but in
general, I think the gentleman would agree, making it easier for small
businesses to keep the lights on right now so they can return to a mode
in which they could increase payroll.
{time} 1545
Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman if he could speak to his
mention of the resolution dealing with the Afghanistan war powers. As
the gentleman knows, the Republicans view a withdrawal from Afghanistan
within 30 days as incredibly irresponsible.
[[Page H1149]]
Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
Mr. HOYER. Just for accuracy, it's my understanding that the
resolution that the gentleman from Ohio has introduced is by December
31, I believe, not 30 days. And I yield back.
Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for that.
Still I would say that the Republican view is we have consistently
supported this President in his efforts in Afghanistan as he has
listened to the commanders on the ground to determine the focus and
future of our presence there in terms of protecting our troops and the
U.S. interests there. So I imagine my friend from Maryland, knowing his
position on these things, agrees with that.
I would like to know, Mr. Speaker, whether there will be an all-out
push to make this some type of partisan issue. Perhaps the gentleman
could shed some light on his position on this bill that is being
brought forward next week. And I yield.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
As the gentleman knows, I've expressed support for the policy being
pursued by President Obama, and I certainly intend to continue to
support that policy. The resolution is not consistent with that. So I
think the gentleman is not going to be surprised at my expectation that
this will be a bipartisan vote--perhaps on both sides of the
proposition, yea and nay, but I certainly think it's going to be a
bipartisan vote.
I believe the President's policy that he has articulated is a
thoughtful, measured policy. And very frankly, I think he has done what
perhaps we should have been doing for some period of time, focused on
where terrorism was organized against the United States to ensure that
we eliminate al Qaeda and prevent the Taliban from resurgence and
reestablishing a base wherefrom terrorists might attack us. I think
that is an appropriate policy that the President is pursuing, and I
would hope that the House would support that policy on both sides of
the aisle.
Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I look forward to
joining him in opposition to the resolution he is bringing to the
floor.
Mr. Speaker, if I could ask the gentleman to give us, in the House,
an update on when he expects the budget resolution to come to the
floor. And I yield.
Mr. HOYER. We hope that the budget resolution will come to the
floor--and we're working on that--by the end of the month before we
leave for the Easter break.
As you can well imagine, given the fiscal situation that confronts
us, that's a very difficult document to put together. But Mr. Spratt is
working very hard at that with the committee. I know Mr. Ryan, I'm
sure, the ranking member, is also working hard on that. I am hopeful
that we will be in a position to bring that to the floor before the
Easter break.
Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for that.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the gentleman, in view of the short
period of time until Easter break, is it his expectation that the House
will take up health care legislation within that time period? And I
yield.
Mr. HOYER. It is the President's hope and our hope that that will be
the case. As you know, the President has expressed that objective, and
we have said that would be our objective as well.
As you know, we have been working on this issue for well over a year.
We passed a bill many months ago; the Senate passed a bill over 2
months ago. Many of us have been working on that bill. As you know, we
had a very substantial--historic, really, in many respects--discussion
with the President at Blair House last week. I understand the President
has incorporated a number of ideas that he felt were good ideas that
Republicans put on the table at that meeting.
My expectation is we will be moving on this bill in the near future.
And what I mean by that is, again, hopefully, that we would be able to
consider this prior to the April break, the Easter break.
Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, the President has asked Congress--in fact yesterday--
that the majority here consider using the reconciliation process to
pass this health care bill. I would like to ask the gentleman, Mr.
Speaker, is it his intention and the Speaker's intention to adhere to
the President's request and actually use the reconciliation process?
And I yield.
Mr. HOYER. Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
As the gentleman knows, we provided for reconciliation in the budget
resolution that was adopted last year, so that is available to us. That
has been used 22 times, as the gentleman knows, since 1980; 16 of those
times it was used when your party was in the majority. You utilized
that to do what the American people think is usually the case: we pass
things by majority vote, up or down, and the majority rules. Now, here,
of course, when the majority rules, it really does represent a majority
of the country. In the Senate, of course, even when a majority votes,
it doesn't necessarily represent a majority of the people of the
country because obviously every State, no matter how large or small, is
represented.
But having said that, we believe that the Republicans, when you used
it for a tax bill or welfare or other very important pieces of
legislation--the tax bill obviously having trillions of dollars of
economic impact on the economy--you felt that that process of passing
it by a majority vote in the United States Senate made sense. We share
your view.
Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that and would say
that nothing compares to the use of or suggested use of reconciliation
then as to now with this bill. I would say that there was, in the main,
bipartisan support and, frankly, support on the part of the people of
this country for what was being done through reconciliation in those
instances.
I would like to turn the gentleman's attention, Mr. Speaker, to a
question that I have regarding statements that were made as late as
September of 2007 when then-Candidate Obama said, ``This is an area
where we're going to have to have a 60 percent majority in the Senate
and in the House in order to actually get a bill to my desk. We're
going to have to have a majority to get a bill to my desk that is not
just a 50-plus-1 majority'' said then-Senator Obama. ``You've got to
break out of what I call the sort of 50-plus-1 pattern of Presidential
politics. Maybe you eke out a victory with 50 plus 1, but you can't
govern. You know, you get Air Force One and a lot of nice perks as
President, but you can't, you can't deliver on health. We're not going
to pass universal health care with a 50-plus-1 strategy.'' That later
quote, again, was the next month in October.
So I'm having difficulty understanding, Mr. Speaker, why now the
President and the majority seem to have done a 180 when it comes to
using reconciliation with a $1 trillion bill that could very well alter
one-sixth of our economy. And I yield.
Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
Let me repeat, his 180 was incorporated as a way to go forward last
year when we adopted the budget almost 1 year ago. So this is nothing
new for the gentleman.
I told the gentleman his party has used this procedure 16 times out
of 22 times that it has been used, which means your party has used it
two-thirds of the time--over two-thirds of the time--that it's been
employed. As a matter of fact, Judd Gregg, a Member of your party, a
leader of the Budget Committee on your side, was chairman of the Budget
Committee, now ranking member, when an objection was raised on that--
we're using quotes--when an objection was raised to that said, as he
turned to the Democratic side, ``What's wrong with a majority vote? I
thought a majority vote was what should prevail.'' That was Judd Gregg
of your party. I think it's ironic when we're saying, okay, you think a
majority vote is good, we'll take a majority vote.
Now, the President's quote is a demonstration that we all say things
that, unfortunately, then don't become reality. Well, I will tell you
the reason they don't become reality is because, as Jim DeMint said, I
think many of your party hope this is President Obama's Waterloo.
That's a direct quote--you used quotes--from Mr. DeMint.
[[Page H1150]]
Your belief is, in my view--I do not attribute it to you--but my
belief is, as Mr. Gingrich pointed out over and over again, if we fail,
you win. The problem is if we fail, we believe the American people
lose, and we think that is not fair.
I want to use one more quote and then I will cease and yield back to
you. October of 2008, Presidential campaign debate, national
television, John McCain, your candidate, said, ``I want to see a plan
that gives all Americans, all families availability of affordable
health care.'' That was a quote that Senator McCain, your candidate for
President, made just a few months ago. It was almost exactly what Mr.
Obama said. So, from my perception, there was a consensus with respect
to where we needed to go.
As a matter of fact, I think almost every Member on this floor
believes that we need to reform the health care system. We've had a
very vigorous debate, a very open debate, a very transparent debate
over 1 year now on how this ought to be done. We have disagreement, and
that is the nature of democracy. But if a majority of the
representatives in this body and the majority of the representatives in
the other body believe a policy ought to be adopted, then, frankly,
that is the way our system should work.
There is nothing in the Constitution, as the gentleman well knows,
about having--except for some rare instances--a supermajority, and
certainly none on policy. There are on confirmations and overriding a
President's veto, but other than that, the perception is the majority
vote rules.
So it's a procedure that you used, and it's a procedure that we
anticipated last March. We hoped that wouldn't be the case. Very
frankly, we would hope that we could work in a bipartisan way to effect
this end that at this point hasn't been possible, and Senator McConnell
has made it pretty clear that he has no intention of participating in
that kind of effort.
I yield back to my friend.
Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
I don't know if the gentleman is saying, Mr. Speaker, that maybe the
President was wrong when he spoke about not using this process; but I
do know, Mr. Speaker, that 70-something percent of the American people
don't like this health care bill.
I think the gentleman is correct, Mr. Speaker, that all of us care
about doing something positive for health care. Republicans care about
health care. We went to that forum with our ideas. The public began to
see for 7 hours that there were very different approaches to how we are
going to deal with health care. We said if we can stop the overhaul,
stop the $1 trillion attempt to lead us to a path from government
getting in the way of decision-making between patients and their
doctors, if we can set that aside, there could be some things that we
could work on much more modest and focused in terms of cost control.
Once we reduce cost, people can have access. More people can have
insurance. We could also do some things together to address the
problems of preexisting condition exceptions in coverage. All of us
want to do something about that.
So I would say to the gentleman, I am disappointed--as I know he
knows that we are--that his side has decided to defy the protests that
came from the President and others on his side of the aisle about the
use of reconciliation for health care. But I would ask the gentleman,
will the House move next on health care or will it be the Senate? And I
yield.
Mr. HOYER. Well, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
We are still discussing exactly what procedure will be employed to
effect a majority vote in both Houses and send something to the
President in the same form, so I can't specifically answer that
question at this particular time.
But let me say to the gentleman, he mentioned the forum we went to,
and Republicans did put ideas on the table. We thought they were
constructive. As a matter of fact, as you may recall, I responded to
Senator Coburn, who is also a medical doctor, when we mentioned about
fraud, waste and abuse. As you know, there is substantial investment in
both the House bill and the Senate bill to eliminating fraud, waste and
abuse. Senator Coburn observed he thought there was a lot of money that
could be saved there. We think that is the case as well, so we have
provided to go after that.
We also, I think, agree that reform ought to be based on a private,
market-based system. As the gentleman knows, the exchanges that are set
up both in the House bill and the Senate bill, they differ; but they
are both based on private sector competition by private insurance
companies.
{time} 1600
We talked about wellness programs. Dr. Coburn also talked about that
as did others. I think Dr. Boustany, Congressman Boustany, also talked
about that.
We have a very substantial investment in wellness and, as Dr. Coburn
pointed out, in practices that give cooperative care and are not
reimbursed piecemeal but are reimbursed by the quality of care that is
given, by the outcomes that are given as opposed to simply being
process-oriented.
We also agree, I think, Mr. Cantor, on mechanisms to have competition
across State lines. We believe the exchanges do that, but we also
believe there is room for discussion in looking at how we might do that
in other ways as well. So we think that that's an idea, and the pooling
with respect to small businesses so they can create large groups so
that they can have better competitive advantages. We believe that, when
we put small businesses into the exchange, that's exactly what we give
them.
For instance, in a large group, as all of us know and as we have in
the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan, we don't have preexisting
conditions, because we are a large group. Most large groups don't. In
the legislation you offered as a substitute to ours, of course, you did
not cover preexisting conditions. Your legislation provided for about 3
million people having greater access to the system; ours for about 30
million. So, while we agree that we ought to have people have access,
frankly, we believe that what we have proposed provides greater access.
Insurance pooling to acquire health insurance at lower prices, it
seems to me we agreed on that as an objective. You disagree with the
way we have done it in terms of our exchanges, which is, of course,
what the Federal Employee Health Benefit Plan is that you and I
participate in. It's a large exchange with many different insurers. In
our area, we have about 25 or 26 different options that we can choose
from. For the most part, they're private sector. As a matter of fact,
for all parts, they're private sector to choose from.
So, yes, we have differences, but as I've told you before, I'm still
prepared to discuss with you and to work with you on suggestions you
have that get us to an objective that we think is appropriate.
Let me just lastly, in closing, say a recent polling shows a majority
wants to keep working. You indicate, as you do on a regular basis, that
there are polls that show people are against this bill. My view is what
they are really against is this confrontation and contention regarding
these bills, which is, of course, why the President said he thought
having 60 percent would give a greater level of confidence. I agree
with that. I would hope that we would have created that kind of
consensus.
I want to read to you: 63 percent in a Washington poll said that we
ought to pass comprehensive health reform; 57 percent in a Kaiser
Family Foundation poll. February 22, 2010, Kaiser poll also finds
overwhelming support for key elements of the reforms in our bill; 76
percent support reforming the way health insurance works in our bill;
71 percent support creating a health insurance exchange, which is in
our bill; and 70 percent support expanding high-risk insurance pools.
So, when you go to the individual elements of our bill, we find very
significant support for those individual elements, I tell my friend. I
continue to look forward to working with my friend to reach common
ground.
Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
Mr. Speaker, from the summation of his remarks, I gather that there
has been no willingness to listen to the American people on the part of
the majority here in the House.
The gentleman does know that all polls indicate that the American
people want us to set the bill aside, to stop this construct that
Washington is going to tell everyone how to design
[[Page H1151]]
health care, and to really start over. In a CNN poll last week, 73
percent of the public said, Shelve the bill. Start over.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's time, and I look forward to
working together with him in whatever way we can, frankly, focusing on
the issue of getting America back to work.
I yield back the balance of my time.
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