[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 58 (Thursday, April 22, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H2818-H2822]
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. Madam 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.
  Madam Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for 
morning-hour debate and at 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes 
postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. 
for morning-hour debate and at 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.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, 
including the very important H.R. 3393, Improper Payments Elimination 
and Recovery Act of 2009, introduced by Representative Patrick Murphy 
of Pennsylvania. The complete list of suspension bills will be 
announced by the close of business tomorrow.
  In addition, we will consider H.R. 5013, Implementing Management for 
Performance and Related Reforms to Obtain Value in Every Acquisition 
Act of 2010, and H.R. 2499, the Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2009.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Madam Speaker, the House will be in session for five more weeks prior 
to the Memorial Day district work period. I would like to inquire of 
the gentleman what legislation he expects the House to consider prior 
to that district work period in addition to the items he just mentioned 
for next week.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  As the gentleman knows, our number one priority has been and 
continues to be the progress on the creation of jobs. Last month's 
report was a positive report. We gained 162,000 jobs, and the economy 
is showing signs of very substantial improvement as a result of the 
Recovery Act and of other actions that we've taken to get Americans 
back to work. So that will continue to be our focus.
  Having said that, we also have passed already the HIRE Act, which we 
think

[[Page H2819]]

will have a very substantial, positive effect, which includes payroll 
tax forgiveness for the hiring of new employees who have been 
unemployed for some period of time. If they are kept on for 52 weeks, 
there will be a $1,000 additional payment, which we hope will encourage 
employers to hire new people. Additionally in that bill, we gave an 
extension of the Highway Trust Fund to allow for continued and 
increased investment in infrastructure and the Build America Bonds 
legislation, as well as giving a boost to small business growth in 
terms of expensing.
  In addition, the House passed the Small Business and Infrastructure 
Jobs Act, which is pending in the Senate. We hope that it is coming 
back to us this work period. We would like to build on our record of 
job-creating legislation with additional relief to small businesses.
  The President has proposed, as the gentleman knows, the Small 
Business Lending Fund that would take $30 billion of TARP funds, which 
was obviously designed to try to get our economy moving again, and 
provide capital infusion to local banks, and provide assets of $10 
billion or less to incentivize small business lending.
  Also, we hope to complete action with the Senate on a long-term 
extension of unemployment insurance, COBRA benefits and tax extenders 
for businesses, large and small. Obviously, those pieces of legislation 
have passed the House.
  I expect the House will also take action this work period on the 
COMPETES Act, which is relatively noncontroversial, but invests in 
growing our economy, particularly in technology innovations, math, and 
science.
  Other items on our agenda for this work period are budget resolution, 
defense acquisition reform, which I announced we would do next week, 
defense authorization, the Afghanistan/Pakistan supplemental, the Haiti 
supplemental, and of course the Iran sanctions conference report, which 
I hope to have done. As to the resolution that you and I just voted 
for, the motion to instruct, I urge that that be reported back by the 
Memorial Day break.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  I would say to the gentleman that I am heartened to hear about his 
continued insistence that this body continue to focus on the number one 
priority of the American people, which is getting this economy going 
again and getting Americans back to work.
  Madam Speaker, I would say that most Americans agree that what we 
ought to be doing is containing and limiting government spending. Many 
of the programs that the gentleman just pointed out indicate that we, 
perhaps, are going to keep heading down the same road that we have been 
in order to try and create an environment for jobs.
  I would say to the gentleman, although there was some job growth last 
month, he, himself, I think, would admit that that is just not enough. 
In fact, if we were to look back at the times of very high employment 
in prior years, there is probably a need for over 400,000 jobs to be 
created each month for us, over a period of several years, in order to 
accommodate for the growth in population as well as to return us to 
that kind of low unemployment.

                              {time}  1300

  We have got a lot of work to do, in other words, Madam Speaker, and I 
know the gentleman knows that. And I think it is fair to say that, in 
fact, we need to create 434,000 jobs per month for 2 years to make up 
for the job losses that we have experienced. That is going to take some 
significant commitment on the part of this Congress to stop the 
government spending and, frankly, to lower taxes on small business.
  As the gentleman knows, his constituents just like mine, everyone I 
talk to knows someone out of work, and it is high time for us to focus 
on small business, and that is to provide the tax relief for small 
business and to stop the government programs of spending. And I would 
hope that the gentleman can commit to trying to change the route that 
we have taken to finally begin to grow this economy again.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I would ask the gentleman when----
  Mr. HOYER. Before the gentleman asks another question, would you 
yield so I might comment on the comments that the gentleman made?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. The gentleman indicates that we want to stop spending. 
Every economist from his side of the aisle to our side of the aisle 
said that if we did not spend money last year that we wouldn't have 
grown the economy. In fact, Ben Bernanke, the Republican-appointed 
Chairman of the Federal Reserve by President Bush; and Secretary 
Paulson all said you had better invest or you are going to go into a 
depression, not a recession.
  The gentleman talks about job creation, and it is very interesting 
because, generally speaking, he wants to return to the policies of the 
Bush administration. And the Bush administration, of course, was the 
worst job-performing administration since Herbert Hoover. I know the 
gentleman knows that because those statistics are pretty clear. It 
created 19,400 jobs per month. You talk about 400 and some odd thousand 
jobs. I agree with the gentleman. We need to create that level if we 
are going to get the jobs that your economic program lost, 19,400 jobs, 
and you need 100,000 to stay even. That was average over 96 months of 
the policies that were pursued during the Bush administration that my 
friend supported.
  Very frankly, if you will remember, during the Clinton 
administration, in an economic program that your party didn't support 
to a person--everyone voted against it--we created 216,000 jobs per 
month. Now, there's no secret as to where those jobs were lost. If you 
create 10 percent of the number of jobs you need to stay even, you're 
going to go behind and we have a real deficit.
  The CBO says that the program that was adopted that, of course, your 
party opposed, created 2 million new jobs or retained jobs in our 
economy. Over the last 5 months, we have had a net positive growth in 
jobs. We grew 162,000 jobs last month. The gentleman is absolutely 
correct, not nearly enough, but much better than the 779,000 jobs that 
were lost in the last month of the Bush administration or the average 
726,000 jobs that were lost in the last 3 months of the Bush 
administration.
  We are now in the pluses. We are starting to grow. We need to do 
much, much more. And that's why I responded to the gentleman, when he 
asked me what we were going to do, we're going to continue to focus on 
bringing jobs back to America and to our people.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Madam Speaker, I would say this: Always the gentleman likes to talk 
about the prior administration, and I would just like to point out that 
during the prior administration, the last 2 years of that, his party 
was in control of Congress and, certainly, if we look at the numbers, 
did contribute to some of the problem that we have got today. And I 
would say there's plenty of blame to go around. But what we are trying 
to do is to learn from perhaps mistakes having taken place and go 
forward in a constructive manner.
  It is my sense, Madam Speaker, that this Nation is at a crossroads. 
We have serious challenges facing this country. Last Thursday was 
Congress's deadline for passing a budget, and it is my strong belief 
that we must act, and the gentleman indicates that we are going to act, 
but because of the critical nature of the challenges that we face, 
Madam Speaker, I believe that we have got three reasons to act swiftly 
and properly in passing a budget because it is at the heart of the lack 
of confidence of what the American people feel towards this body, and 
if we can rebuild that confidence somehow, we can see a return to 
growth in this economy so people can get back to work.
  First, Madam Speaker, since the 1974 Budget Act passed, the House has 
never failed to pass a budget resolution. American families and small 
businesses are not given the luxury of avoiding a budget somehow 
because maybe it's too difficult, and neither should we. And the 
gentleman in his own words has said before that it is difficult to pass 
budgets in election years because the budgets reflect what the fiscal 
status is. And again, Madam Speaker, I point out never since the 
passage of the Budget Act in 1974 has this House failed to pass a 
budget resolution.
  Secondly, Madam Speaker, as to the urgency for this body to act in 
this critical time, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf recently remarked that 
the

[[Page H2820]]

Nation's fiscal path is unsustainable and without a more aggressive 
approach to spending than the President took in his budget proposal, 
the debt will rise from currently 53 percent of GDP to 90 percent of 
GDP at the end of the decade. We all know, Madam Speaker, that is 
unacceptable.
  Finally, I would say to the gentleman, Madam Speaker, the President 
in his remarks consistently refers to pending tax increases as the 
expiration of the Bush tax cut. And, Madam Speaker, I would say the 
American people believe that erasing a tax cut is a tax increase. This 
Congress has a responsibility to the people that we represent to inform 
them, the families, the small businesses, of its intention on whether 
we are going to increase taxes on the small business people and working 
families of this country.
  So I would ask the gentleman if he could give us some sense of when 
we could expect this body to act on a budget.
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. Well, I hope that we act on a budget certainly before the 
end of this work period. I think it's important to pass a budget. I 
have said that. I am working towards that end.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman for that and for his commitment to 
ensure that we right the ship, so to speak, and stop the spending.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield on that?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. The gentleman would like to pretend that the Bush 
administration didn't exist. He doesn't like to look back. He doesn't 
like history. He doesn't like to learn from our mistakes. I notice he 
doesn't outline the mistakes that the Bush administration made and that 
he made in supporting the Bush economic policies, but presumably he 
believes they existed, which led to such a disastrous performance of 
our economy. The turning of a $5.6 trillion surplus that the Bush 
administration inherited, which allowed it to do some of the things 
that it did without paying for them because they inherited surpluses, 
unfortunately, they left a $5 trillion deficit to this administration. 
They left a deep, deep, deep hole that we have been trying to dig out, 
without much help, frankly, from your side of the aisle, I will tell my 
friend. And we are getting out of that hole. Almost every indicator 
indicates that, including a growth in jobs. Not nearly to where people 
are feeling it. So we need to make sure that we continue to create jobs 
and create an economy that is working much better than it worked during 
the Bush administration.

  The gentleman mentions that we were in charge of Congress in 2007. 
Yes, in 2006 the American public said we don't like the policies that 
the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress are pursuing; 
we want a change. We did change. But the gentleman well knows that no 
veto of President Bush was overridden to change the economic policies 
you were pursuing, period. We couldn't do that. We couldn't do it until 
such time as January of 2009 occurred. When it occurred, unfortunately 
and tragically for the American people and the millions, 8 million-
plus, to be exact, lost their jobs, a financial system that was 
suffering from egregious regulatory neglect and had, as a result, put 
many, many taxpayers, millions of taxpayers, to the responsibility of 
trying to stabilize the ship of state. And we have done that.
  The good news is that money is being paid back. And the good news is 
that in terms of the bill that you and I both supported but two-thirds 
of your party did not, we did stabilize, at the request of the Bush 
administration, the financial community.
  So when the gentleman says that we need to grow jobs, we do. But very 
frankly, if the gentleman is proposing the same policies that were 
pursued for 8 years under the Bush administration, then that won't get 
it and didn't get it. And that's why it is important to learn, not to 
place blame, but to learn, as I said the other day, from those failures 
and not repeat them, to invest in the growth of our economy.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Madam Speaker, I would say back if he is so intent on comparing the 
budgets and the outlook under the Bush administration to this one, I 
would say this: If we compare the 2011 budgets of President Bush and 
President Obama, President Bush's outlook and budget for this year was 
$2.9 trillion. The 2011 budget of this President is $3.6 trillion. We 
could simply cut the deficit by 50 percent if we just lived within 
President Bush's 2011 budget.
  Madam Speaker, I would say to the gentleman if you cut out all of the 
emergency spending caused by the recession and just look at 
discretionary spending, since Congress votes on that every year, 
President Obama will increase discretionary spending by $319 billion 
over President Bush's budget for 2011.
  So, Madam Speaker, I would say, again, we have got to do better. The 
American people are waiting for this body to step up in a responsible 
way to stop the spending, which brings on the need for yet even more 
debt, which ultimately will lead to higher taxes, despite what the 
gentleman says, that there's been enough tax relief, and get back to a 
fiscal path that makes sense so we can see small business grow again.
  I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. First of all, the gentleman does this often. I never said 
there has been enough tax relief. What you just said I said, I never 
said that. Nobody heard me say that.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thought that the gentleman, Madam Speaker, had said 
that there has been so much tax relief under the current administration 
that it seems that all we need to do is keep spending.
  Mr. HOYER. If I can, I think you anticipated what the facts are as 
you know. I didn't say that but you anticipated I might say it.
  Mr. CANTOR. I will apologize----
  Mr. HOYER. Ninety-five percent of the American public, 95 percent of 
the American working people, got a tax cut, as you recall, in the 
legislation that you voted against, $280 billion in tax relief. That 
went into the pockets of Americans, helped them get through some very, 
very tough times which we inherited, did not create, which we 
inherited, and moving forward.
  Now, with respect to the tax increases that you referred to earlier, 
they are going into effect because of a policy that I voted against but 
I think you voted for. You were here in 2001 and 2003. And why did you 
do that? You talk about budgeting. You did it because you couldn't 
conform to your budget requirements. So what you simply did was you did 
the artifice, with all due respect, to saying, well, they will expire 
in 2010. So what is projected to happen in 2010 is a direct result of 
the budget and the policies that you promoted and voted for, I tell my 
friend.
  Mr. CANTOR. I will say to the gentleman again if he is so intent on 
comparing the two, let's go back to the Bush budget, which would allow 
us to cut the deficit by 50 percent, if he is so intent on saying how 
bad things were. Let's stop the spending.
  But I would say to the gentleman as far as tax relief is concerned, 
that tax relief to 95 percent of the public, 25 percent of the tax 
relief went to entities and individuals that don't even pay taxes. Now, 
in the minds of most Americans, that is not a tax cut; that's a 
handout. And that is why we have got to start getting back to basics, 
Madam Speaker, and insist that the kinds of things that we do here are 
actually constructive to job creation because that is what we need to 
be about.
  Now, we can go through the litany of things in this President's 
budget and what the majority has done over its term in office this 
session to demonstrate taxes have gone up significantly over this 
period.
  It is time to stop taxing, stop spending, and stop borrowing.
  So, Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for----
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield on that?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. When you say taxes have gone up in this period, what 
period are you referring to?

                              {time}  1315

  Mr. CANTOR. Well, I can say this year, this year, Madam Speaker, 
taxes have increased $670 billion, $316 billion of which comes at the 
expense of the middle class, breaking the President's promise.
  Mr. HOYER. And what were those taxes?
  Mr. CANTOR. Madam Speaker, I would say, if you look at the health 
care bill that was just passed----

[[Page H2821]]

  Mr. HOYER. The health care bill has not gone into effect. You're 
saying this year taxes have been increased.
  Mr. CANTOR. The health care bill that has just passed, as long as 
this economy and the players in this economy understand that actions 
are being taken now to facilitate adopting to a very high tax 
environment.
  Now, if the gentleman wants to join us, if he wants to join us in 
sending the signal to the public that we're not going to continue 
business as usual, then let's step up, send the signal we're not going 
to allow taxes to increase any further, and that starts with differing 
from the President's budget, which calls for $2 trillion of tax hikes 
over the next 10 years.
  So I'll say to the gentleman, you can say all day long that you have 
sat here and provided enough middle class tax relief. It's just not 
true. The public doesn't understand that. The public sees Washington 
spending money in unprecedented ways and having to borrow to pay for 
that. And, ultimately, people understand that it is about raising their 
taxes, reducing their take-home pay in order to pay for that.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. The gentleman perhaps believes if he says it enough that I 
said there's been enough tax relief maybe people will believe it. I 
have never said that on this floor or any other place. So I wish the 
gentleman would stop mischaracterizing what I say.
  Now, very frankly, what I have said is the policies we pursued were 
not working demonstrably when we took over the Presidency of the United 
States, and could change policy, which we did. We changed policy 
consistent with, frankly, what Senator McCain said ought to be done 
during the course of the election, not the same way, but that we had to 
invest in our economy. Mark Zandi, Senator McCain's economic adviser, 
along with others, said we needed to do what we did.
  Now, the gentleman voted against it. But it has, I tell you, worked 
demonstrably, 2 million new jobs according to the CBO--not new jobs, 
retained or created. In fact, over 2 million jobs; 162,000 jobs created 
last month. Not enough. He is correct.
  But to ignore the fact that we are making some progress, I don't know 
whether you saw Larry Kudlow, he said, you know, stop talking down the 
economy, stop saying that things aren't getting better because the 
psychology of the economy is very important. And, in fact, whether it's 
the stock market indication going up, they have confidence, whether 
it's the growth in our economy from a 6.4 percent decline in the 
economy that we took over from the Bush administration, to now, a 5.6 
percent growth, that figure doesn't mean anything to anybody unless 
they get jobs. I understand that. We need to get jobs.
  What it does mean, however, with the economy growing, that jobs will 
follow. And that's important.
  So please don't put words in my mouth. We need to cut taxes for the 
American public. In fact, as you know--I want to remark on something 
that you said. Ronald Reagan was a supporter of the earned income tax 
credit. Why was he a supporter of the earned income tax credit? Because 
he thought making sure people had enough money to get by on, buy some 
food for their family, buy some clothes for their kids to go to school 
and pay their mortgage payment, was an important thing to happen.
  That's the difference, frankly, between our two parties. We don't 
believe that was a handout. It was a hand up in a very difficult 
economy. We said--and they don't pay taxes. Why don't they pay taxes, I 
ask my friend rhetorically. The reason they don't pay taxes is they're 
not making enough money to pay taxes.
  Under your tax program, I would suggest to you, you did that, we 
supported it. They didn't pay taxes. But what we said is, they've got 
to live, their kids have to eat, they have to get by. And to the extent 
that they have some assistance in doing so and spend that money, as 
every economist will tell you, and you know this to be the case, it 
will help the economy grow. Yes, we help those people as well.
  Maybe you think that was simply a handout and that we shouldn't have 
done it. But we did it, and it is the difference between our parties in 
many instances.
  I yield back.
  Mr. CANTOR. Madam Speaker, I reclaim my time. Madam Speaker, now, 
see, this is when the politics of attack kick in. For anyone to sit 
here and say that Republicans don't care about people, that's just not 
true, and he knows it. It's a definitional question.
  If the gentleman differs with my characterization it's not a handout, 
it's a hand up, okay. But what we're talking about was tax relief. It 
was not a tax cut. If you don't pay taxes, you can't get a tax cut.
  But what I'd say to the gentleman is this: times are different right 
now, Madam Speaker. The American public understands the crossroads this 
country is at, that we are on a path to fiscal ruin.
  And the gentleman likes to continue to defend the stimulus bill as 
having been a success. Well, I would say to the Speaker, I'd say, Madam 
Speaker, to the gentleman, no one, not very many people in America 
think the stimulus bill was a success at generating jobs, and that's 
just almost a unanimous fact among most Americans. So if we know that, 
why would we continue to advocate the same policies?
  And instead, Madam Speaker, I would say again I hope the gentleman 
would join us in advocating tax cuts for small businesses so that we 
can grow jobs in this economy.
  The gentleman did ask what tax cuts, or what tax hikes, occurred over 
the last, over this session. And during the gentleman's party's 
majority rule, we know that there was a $65 billion tax increase on 
tobacco products. There was an almost $7 billion tax increase under the 
stimulus law repealing guidance allowing certain payers to claim losses 
of an acquired corporation. There was another almost $23 billion of 
surtaxes extended for the Federal unemployment program. And there was 
also, Madam Speaker, as the gentleman knows, a delay of rules reducing 
double taxation of American foreign nationals to the tune of almost $6 
billion. Those are the tax hikes that have occurred, in addition to the 
overwhelming billions and billions of dollars inside the health care 
bill.
  So, Madam Speaker, it is not accurate for the gentleman to represent 
that, number one, this Congress has not raised taxes on the middle 
class. We know differently. And, number two, to sit here and hide 
behind the notion that there aren't going to be tax increases at the 
end of this year, and the fact that that realization is not impacting 
job growth or the lack thereof, that's not being completely accurate, 
Madam Speaker.
  And I would say to the gentleman, times are different now. It is time 
for us to own up to the obligations that we face as a country and work 
together to try and put this country back onto a growth path.

  So with that, Madam Speaker----
  Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield one more time?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. It is a new time. We're paying our bills. Now, we had to 
borrow a lot of money because we were in a very deep hole. And 
everybody said if you didn't, all economists, Marty Feldstein, 
conservative adviser to Ronald Reagan, said you need to put more money 
back into the economy.
  We didn't have any money. You had a $5.6 trillion surplus that you 
inherited. We inherited a $5 trillion deficit. So we had no money. Your 
administration spent it all.
  But you didn't pay for things you bought. You didn't pay for your tax 
cuts. Very nice to give tax cuts, but if you don't pay for them and 
they create deficits, then who's going to pay for them? Our children. 
And that's what happened.
  We went to war. One was absolutely essential. We went to another war 
that some say was of choice, that is, in Iraq. We somewhat abandoned 
Afghanistan when we went to Iraq, and we didn't succeed in Afghanistan; 
but we didn't pay for either one of those wars.
  Who are we expecting to pay for those wars? Our children.
  You adopted a drug prescription program which, very frankly, we made 
better in the health care bill. We made seniors more secure in getting 
their prescription drugs. But you didn't pay for it.

[[Page H2822]]

  Your economy that you left us, very frankly, is responsible for 38 
percent of that deficit to which you referred; 90 percent-plus of the 
deficit that confronts this country are direct results of the policies 
pursued in the last administration. Just as when Roosevelt inherited 
from the Hoover administration a very substantial downturn, it took him 
time to turn that economy around.
  So I say to my friend, we are prepared to work together, but we're 
not prepared to pretend that--when you say times are different, they 
are different. They are very different. The difference between a $5.6 
trillion surplus and a $5 trillion deficit, the Bush administration 
inheritance and our inheritance. And that has made it tough. It's made 
it tough on us, tough on the American people. And we're trying to get 
out of this. I think we are.
  And again I repeat to my friend, Larry Kudlow gave you some good 
advice, very conservative guy, on television. You know him; I know him. 
We appear on his program. And he urged those of you on the conservative 
side of the ledger, don't deny the facts. That's what Larry Kudlow 
said. Don't deny the progress that has been made because if you deny it 
and people believe that denial, they won't think things are getting 
better and they won't act accordingly. And that's not going to be good 
for our economy. It won't be good for our country.
  So I caution my friend to, when things are positive, have the ability 
to say, yes, we've made some positive progress from where we were 
before this administration came into office.
  I yield back.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman. And in trying to close this 
colloquy, Madam Speaker, I would say the gentleman knows good and well 
that when we had a positive job growth report last month, I was the 
first one to speak out and acknowledge the fact that, yes, growing jobs 
is a good thing. We've got a long way to go.
  The gentleman admits that we are at a different time now, and he 
points to the deficits; and I point to the fact that the old 
administration, he alleges, didn't pay its bills, and that perhaps we, 
in the majority, spent too much. Okay. Fine.
  But it doesn't give this majority and this Congress and this 
administration any better or more license to go and bankrupt this 
country by continuing on the spending path, and that is my point.
  We are at a crossroads, Madam Speaker. I would tell to the gentleman, 
we have tremendous challenges before us; and as the American people 
know, if we don't stop the reckless policies of this town, it may very 
well lead to the fact that our kids and their kids will not enjoy the 
same freedoms and opportunities that we do.
  So I continue to tell the gentleman we stand ready to work with him 
to try and address this extremely critical time in our Nation.
  I yield back.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield, I'll simply say, I agree with 
the gentleman. And I agree with the gentleman, and certainly want to 
join together in this effort. And the gentleman will observe, that's 
why we have adopted, readopted statutory PAYGO. We think that will 
constrain spending. That's why we've created a commission to look at 
spending and make recommendations to get a handle on the spending in 
this country and bring our deficit in line as it was in the nineties.
  And that is why the President has submitted a budget that freezes 
discretionary spending at last year's levels. So we agree with you that 
we need to move in that direction and, in fact, we are.
  I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. CANTOR. And I'd say, final closing, Madam Speaker. I'd say that 
in order to get a handle on spending, just stop. And that is why we 
shouldn't allow for discussion of hiking taxes. It allows this body, 
this Federal Government, to have yet even more of the taxpayer dollars 
to decide how to spend.
  It's time for us to stop and practice fiscal discipline and get this 
economy back on track.
  I yield back.

                          ____________________