[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 77 (Thursday, May 20, 2010)]
[House]
[Pages H3682-H3685]
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 (Mr. 
Hoyer), the majority leader, for the purposes of announcing next week's 
schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the Republican whip for yielding.
  On Monday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate 
and 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 12 p.m. for legislative business. 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.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, as is 
usual. The complete list of suspension bills will be announced by the 
close of business tomorrow.
  In addition, we will consider Senate amendments to H.R. 4213, the 
American Jobs Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act, and 
H.R. 5136, the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2011. 
And we will take further action on the America COMPETES legislation to 
make our economy more vibrant.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I'd ask, with the Memorial Day recess beginning the week 
after next, does the gentleman expect the House to be in session next 
Friday.
  I yield.

                              {time}  1630

  Mr. HOYER. I expect us to reserve that day for session. I have urged 
Members, and I would urge Members on both sides of the aisle, to 
reserve that day, not to plan for that day. Clearly, if we can complete 
the week's business then we will not have to meet.
  But I remind the gentleman, as I am sure he knows, there are a number 
of items that have expiration dates either on the 31st of May or the 
1st of June: unemployment insurance, COBRA health insurance, the 
sustainable growth rate for doctors' reimbursement for services, and 
other items that are critical to continue. So that I do not want to 
give away Friday because it is the last day we will be here for 10 
days, and therefore we need to address those issues.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman indicated, the Defense 
authorization bill is coming to the floor next week. Usually, I think 
Members expect several days' worth of debate on a variety of 
amendments. Typically, there are a large number of amendments made in 
order.
  I would ask the gentleman, does he expect the House to follow that 
general precedent on the Defense authorization and the lengthy number 
of amendments and discussion on the House floor next week?
  Mr. HOYER. We expect to take such time as is necessary to complete 
the appropriate debate on that bill. If we can do it in 1 day, we will 
do it in 1

[[Page H3683]]

day. If it takes more than that, we will allot more time.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of items the gentleman 
did not mention for next week's schedule, including a budget resolution 
as well as a troop funding supplemental. I would like to ask the 
gentleman, Mr. Speaker, whether he expects either of these two items to 
come to the floor next week.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his question and for yielding. 
With respect to the budget, as the gentleman knows, I personally want 
to see a budget move forward. Mr. Spratt has been working very hard to 
try to see if we can reach consensus on the parameters of such a 
budget. He continues to do that. I frankly want to tell the gentleman 
honestly that my assessment is that that probably will not be done by 
Thursday or Wednesday of next week, and therefore even if it were 
completed Wednesday, not appropriate time for notice to be given. So 
that my expectation is that will not be done next week, but my 
expectation is that we will continue to work on that, and hopefully do 
that shortly after our return.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. You asked another question I didn't answer. I apologize. 
On the war supplemental, very important bill that I know the gentleman 
and I are very interested in. As you know, the Senate has marked up its 
supplemental in committee. Chairman Obey I know is working to get a 
bill ready for committee consideration. It is possible that we would 
consider that next week if, in fact, Mr. Obey and the committee are 
ready to report that out.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman knows, the House voted 
today on the first YouCut proposal. It was a spending cut selected by 
the American people. Unfortunately, only nine Members from the 
gentleman's side of the aisle joined with all Republicans in voting to 
save the taxpayers $2.5 billion. I wish more Members of the Democratic 
Caucus had voted with Republicans.
  The good news is Members will have the opportunity to vote on another 
cut again next week. Right now as we speak, Mr. Speaker, Americans are 
casting their votes at Republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut for what they 
would like the House to cut next week.
  So, in keeping with the gentleman's announcement about next week's 
floor schedule, I would like to announce that the House will vote on 
one of these five spending cut proposals next week: first, to eliminate 
the Byrd Honor Scholarship Program, a $420 million item for savings; 
second, stop the proposed Federal employee pay raise next year, a 
potential $30 billion worth of savings; third, to suspend the Federal 
land purchases, a $2.6 billion potential savings, Mr. Speaker; fourth, 
an ability to terminate U.S. funding for UNESCO, a potential item for 
$810 million worth of savings to the taxpayers; or fifth, a move to 
eliminate mohair subsidies, something that would save the taxpayers $10 
million.
  Mr. Speaker, I would say again, the gentleman knows about this 
program. It is nothing but an attempt for us to try and change the 
culture here in Washington towards one of saving taxpayer dollars. 
Reducing the budget deficit should be a bipartisan effort, and we would 
hope that the gentleman and his colleagues could join with us as we 
bring up the next YouCut proposal next week.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Boehner and I did attempt to pursue some meaningful 
restraints last week, and unfortunately, we couldn't get agreement to 
do so on your side of the aisle. Having said that, we certainly agree 
that we need to get a handle on the extraordinary deficit picture that 
confronts us.
  I know I am repetitive, but in 2001, President Bush came before the 
Congress and said we have a $5.6 trillion surplus. Unfortunately, that 
$5.6 trillion surplus was eliminated, and in fact, $5 trillion of 
additional deficit was incurred, giving us a $10 trillion deficit when 
this administration took over. That's unfortunate.
  I will tell the gentleman, as he knows, he and others have voted for 
trillions, that's with a T, of dollars of unfunded liabilities for the 
Federal Government, either reduction in revenues, which of course you 
say will grow the economy--unfortunately, it did not--or a prescription 
drug bill which was not paid for which was hundreds of billions of 
dollars, not minimal dollars. But I will tell the gentleman that we are 
interested in working with you in a meaningful way, not in procedural 
vote ways, but in meaningful ways to reduce the deficit that confronts 
us, including reducing areas of spending, which we think is 
appropriate.
  With respect to the motion that you made today, a procedural motion, 
if it hadn't been a procedural motion, maybe a real motion--and of 
course many of those programs were in existence for the 12 years that 
you controlled the Congress of the United States, as the gentleman well 
knows. The motion today, of course, would have affected a program which 
is going to create, we believe, 185,000 jobs. We think that's important 
in an economy that is still struggling to get jobs back. But we applaud 
the efforts to bring forward meaningful, important ideas. 
Unfortunately, that has not always been our experience.

  I am sure you read there have been a lot of motions to recommit that 
have been made. Now we are onto previous questions now, but motions to 
recommit. Norm Ornstein wrote an article about those just the other day 
in which he said, The unfortunate fact is that the motion to recommit 
with instructions has for more than a decade become a hollow vehicle 
and farce. Now, the American people don't want to see us participate in 
hollow vehicles and farces. What they want to see is us work together 
in real ways to effect the kind of fiscal responsibility that we had in 
the nineties, and unfortunately we did not have in the last decade. We 
need to return to that.
  We have, as you know, taken very substantive steps. One was to pay 
for what we buy--not a previous question--legislation on this floor 
which said we are going to pay for what we buy. That was in place in 
the nineties, put in place in a bipartisan way with Mr. Bush and Mr. 
Gephardt leading the way and others. Again adopted in a bipartisan way 
with Mr. Gingrich and President Clinton working together. And then of 
course jettisoned under not your personal leadership, but under the 
leadership of the Republican Party in 2001, 2002, 2003, formally 
jettisoned in 2003, in which we said, no, we don't believe that paying 
for what we buy is the policy that we are going to pursue. And in fact 
you didn't pursue it. You created large deficits every year that you 
controlled the Congress: the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. 
Every year without fail.
  So I tell my friend that we want to join together in real efforts. We 
are sorry that in a partisan way PAYGO was jettisoned. We are also 
sorry that the commission that the President established by Executive 
order didn't pass because so many of your colleagues in the Senate who 
said they were for the idea of setting up a commission to propose real 
restraint in spending, not only in terms of discretionary dollars but 
in terms of entitlement dollars, that so many of your colleagues in the 
Senate opposed that, and as result we don't have a statutory 
commission, we have a Presidentially appointed commission.
  I am hopeful that they will make substantive recommendations. I am 
hopeful that our Members and your Members will join together in making 
recommendations to us. And as you know, both Mr. Reid, the leader in 
the Senate, and Speaker Pelosi have indicated that we will put their 
recommendations on the floor. If the Senate passes them, we will put 
them on the floor here. Hopefully, we can work together toward the end 
that I think we both seek even though there may be disagreement on the 
process that is being pursued.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman loves to talk about spending 
under the Bush years and under the years that our party controlled 
Congress. But I find it somewhat ironic at this point to go on talking 
about the inability to control spending when it is his party and the 
majority currently that is unable to produce a budget. He and I have 
had discussions again about the inability of this House to do its work, 
and in fact, I know the gentleman recalls, because it has been reported 
before that he himself says that when we are unable to pass a budget, 
and I quote, ``it is failing to meet the most basic responsibility of 
governing, that is enacting a budget.''

[[Page H3684]]

  In the same way, the gentleman's chairman of the Budget Committee 
from South Carolina (Mr. Spratt) said, quote, ``If you can't budget, 
you can't govern. In a parliamentary system it's more than an adage.''

  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. Not yet, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. HOYER. I was just going to say that I still agree with both of 
those statements, Mr. Spratt's and my own.
  Mr. CANTOR. I appreciate that. I would say instead of casting stones 
and pointing blame and saying you too did this, I believe that it is 
most important for us to recognize now the failure of this body to do 
what the American people expect us to do to control spending, and that 
is to produce a budget.
  Mr. Speaker, I go on to say the gentleman was quick to, if I could 
say, malign the attempt to reduce the $2.4 billion program under the 
expanded welfare program under the stimulus bill that we just had a 
vote on. But I would point out that there were nine Members on his side 
of the aisle--Mr. Bright, Mr. Donnelly, Ms. Giffords, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, 
Mr. McIntyre, Mr. Minnick, Mr. Mitchell, Mr. Nye, and Mr. Taylor--these 
individual Members felt that perhaps we were and did have a valid point 
to make, that we ought to be cutting spending right now.
  I would say to the gentleman, perhaps he is suggesting that these 
individuals voted to kill 185,000 jobs. I wouldn't say that those 
Members tried to do that in that vote. Again, I would just ask the 
gentleman whether that was his intention. I would probably think he 
wouldn't think his Members would vote to kill jobs.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I think there is a lot of concern, not necessarily on 
these Members' parts, and we all know this, about 30-second simplistic 
``gotcha'' ads on television which don't discuss the substance of the 
ramifications of actions. The bill that passed passed overwhelmingly. 
The previous question would have stopped that bill going forward. 
Obviously, when you were in control you wanted the previous question 
passed so you could move your substantive legislation forward. There is 
no difference over here. But the ``gotcha'' ads certainly are something 
that in the minds of everybody on both sides of the aisle----
  Mr. CANTOR. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, there are no ``gotcha'' 
ads here. There was a statement made by the gentleman that said that 
the program that we were attempting to cut was a program that could 
create or has created 185,000 jobs. I just say to the gentleman, nine 
of his Members voted with us on that vote, and I would ask the 
gentleman does he think those nine Members voted to kill 185,000 jobs 
the way he in his statement sort of implied that Republicans intended 
to do?

                              {time}  1645

  Mr. HOYER. Well, first of all, we don't believe this is a real vote. 
Our Members don't believe it's a real vote. Our Members are cognizant 
of why it's being done. But the 185,000 jobs, clearly, those nine 
Members that you referenced did not vote to eliminate 185,000 jobs. But 
all your Members did. The difference is because you are not going to 
run ads against your Members.
  The fact of the matter is that if you want to do real things to 
create real jobs, we're prepared to work with you. We believe the 
program you wanted to eliminate does in fact score at creating 185,000 
jobs. You call it welfare. We call it work. We think it was an 
appropriate expenditure. As a matter of fact, as the gentleman may 
know, we have that expenditure in our jobs bill. Why? Because it's 
scored to create 185,000 jobs, put people to work, allow them to 
support their families, allow them to live with some degree of dignity. 
And we think that's appropriate in a very, very strained economy to 
this date.
  We're coming back, but as we've seen lately, it is fragile and this 
gum, grease, and oil has caused us problems in terms of confidence. And 
we need to keep confidence up and not make the mistakes that have been 
made in the past.
  Mr. CANTOR. I would say to the gentleman that obviously we have a 
real difference and the program we propose to cut is number one. The 
kind of debate that we're having should be the kind of debate we are 
having on this floor every day--not voting for post offices and naming 
Federal buildings.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield on that particular point?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. As you know, I schedule the legislation. Are you asking me 
not to schedule the 40 percent of those post office bills that your 
Members are requesting? Because if you are, I will not schedule them.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, what I am asking the gentleman to do is to 
work with us in bringing to the floor and scheduling bills that 
actually reduce spending here in Washington because the gentleman 
indicated that he knows why all of this is being done, and I think that 
perhaps maybe he's thinking it's being done under the old construct.
  Where we are now, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, is that the American 
people expect some accountability here in Washington. They want us to 
stop spending money we don't have. The reason we launched the YouCut 
program is, number one, we want to say to the American people, we're 
listening, that we're not setting aside their wishes and their desires, 
that we care about what they think. That's what YouCut is all about. 
It's about empowering folks to go online and to tell us what they 
think, given the options presented to cut the Federal budget deficit. 
That's why we're doing this program, Mr. Speaker, and that's what 
YouCut is all about.
  I would say to the gentleman, not one bill on the floor this week cut 
a single dollar from the Federal deficit. That's why we brought this 
proposal up.
  Now, as to why we chose the PQ, I think the gentleman knows that the 
rules put in place and make it so that the minority has no other way to 
posit their alternatives or posit wishes that we may have other than to 
use a PQ, and that's why we elected to do this. If the gentleman wants 
to schedule a bill that we are discussing on substantive grounds, 
that's what we're about. Bring these bills to the floor for open and 
fair debate.
  Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman, he mentions the 
disappointment that he has over some on our side of the aisle and the 
other side of this building in not supporting the President's 
commission addressing the fiscal outlook for this country. The 
gentleman knows well the reason many Members on our side of the aisle 
refused to participate in that vote was because, in fact, the focus was 
not going to be on that commission cutting spending.
  We think that Washington doesn't have a revenue problem; we have a 
spending problem here. So why couldn't we just set aside the need for 
additional revenues, put that off the table, and focus on spending?
  Again, that's what the YouCut program is about. That's why we're 
bringing these things to the floor, and I would hope that the gentleman 
could join us in demonstrating that we're listening to the people and 
actually moving towards a sense of fiscal discipline here in 
Washington.
  Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I ask the gentleman, there is a Member on your side of the 
aisle who has, in my opinion, a very thoughtful, courageous, and 
substantive proposal. I happen not to agree with it, but I think it is 
a courageous, intellectually honest proposal. And that is Mr. Ryan, 
who's the ranking member of the Budget Committee. If the gentleman 
would like us to put that budget on the floor--which is from his chair 
when he was in the majority of the Budget Committee--that is a really 
substantive proposal. Again, I don't agree with it, but I think it 
intellectually is an honest, effective proposal to deal with a very 
serious problem, not a little problem, but a trillion-dollar problem; 
not a little problem that sounds good in sound bites but is not going 
to get us to where we need to be.
  I think Mr. Ryan has such a proposal, and I certainly would urge the 
chairman of the Budget Committee to agree to make sure that's on the 
floor because I believe that is a substantive proposal. The gentleman 
says we don't put his substantive proposals on the

[[Page H3685]]

floor. That's made by the ranking member of the Budget Committee, one 
of the leaders of his party, representing your party on the Budget 
Committee. And I would be glad to make arrangements to have that 
proposal on the floor.
  Would the gentleman want me to do that?
  Mr. CANTOR. I say to the Speaker, the gentleman suggests that our 
ranking member on the Budget Committee, Mr. Ryan's roadmap proposal, is 
the budget. That is not the budget. That's a 75-year document. The 
gentleman, I think, knows, if he's looked at that, it is a plan to try 
and address the very real fiscal challenges that this country faces.

  Mr. HOYER. I agree with that.
  Mr. CANTOR. And our job here in this Congress is to go about trying 
to address the problems through the processes that his party has put in 
place.
  Right now, priority one should be a budget. Okay. So if the gentleman 
is suggesting that perhaps we bring Mr. Ryan's roadmap bill to the 
floor, a 75-year document, how is that even something that we could 
expect is a serious gesture to do something about the fiscal needs this 
country has when his party can't even produce a budget for this fiscal 
year?
  So again I say, Mr. Speaker, let's get serious now. There are a lot 
of things we can agree on. The budget cut that we brought to the floor 
today is something that I believe, up-or-down, if his Members were 
given the opportunity to vote on again and think about without being 
tainted by some accusation that it may not be for real, these are cuts 
that are serious. We've got to start somewhere, and the American people 
have said start here.
  So this is what we're about, Mr. Speaker, and I'd ask the gentleman 
to work with us and bring these types of cuts to the floor.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. If the gentleman is really saying that $2.5 billion is 
not something that we could start with--as if that's no money. I know 
he doesn't mean that. And only in Washington somehow has that become a 
sense that $2.5 billion is not real money. Of course it is.
  But we've got to find ways to work together. And if the gentleman 
says he'll bring up this bill but he can't support it, then the purpose 
is not for us to work together. We've got to work together to find a 
way to solve these problems.
  And I'll yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I take that as a ``no,'' that you're not interested in having that 
bill brought up.
  But $2.5 billion is a lot of money, and to the extent we cut $2.5 
billion or $2.5 million, we ought to do it. You are going to have an 
opportunity to vote on that $2.4 billion, 185,000 job-creation bill 
probably next week. We're going to have it on the floor. So you'll have 
a chance to vote on that, I tell my friend.
  We do want to work together. And the reason I keep bringing up is not 
to blame--I said this a couple of weeks ago--not to blame, but to point 
out the failure of the premise under which you have operated to do what 
you said it was going to do: create jobs, lower the deficit. In fact, 
it did the opposite. We followed that economic policy for 6 years. The 
American public said, We don't like this. And we couldn't change it 
because President Bush didn't want to change it.
  In 2008, they said, We want new leadership. Unfortunately, the legacy 
we were left was the deepest economic recession as a result of those 
policies that this country has seen in 75 years. We're trying to dig 
out. It's difficult to dig out. We have a responsibility, however, to 
make the tough decisions to dig out.
  You and I made a tough decision at President Bush's request in 
September. In February, we had to make another tough decision. You and 
I disagreed on that, and that was trying to put money into the economy, 
trying to stabilize it and bring jobs back. I suggest to the gentleman 
that that is working. It's not working as well as we would have liked, 
but we've had 4 months of job growth. Those 4 months, if they're 
replicated over the next two-thirds of the year, would create more jobs 
than were created in the 96 months of the Bush administration--1.7 
million jobs. One million were created during the entire 8 years of the 
Bush administration, net.
  We have a hole. We need to dig out. The gentleman is absolutely 
correct: to the extent that we dig together, America will be better. We 
want to do that.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  Again, I would respond by saying it is just not all that black and 
white, and he knows it. There is no way that the blame for what 
happened can go singly to one party, one administration, or what have 
you. We all have to come here with the best of intentions to work 
together and to point to the good in this country and what made us who 
we are, and that is the freedom and the economic freedom afforded by 
our system.
  Those are the principles by which we come to this building, Mr. 
Speaker. And some of us have a strong objection to the increasing sense 
that somehow we've got all of the answers here in Washington, that we 
don't have to listen to the people.
  I'm glad to hear that the gentleman is going to bring some YouCut 
proposals to the floor. That's a great start. We need to keep listening 
to the people, doing what it is they expect, which is to get the 
Federal spending under control.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, I look forward to working with Mr. Hoyer.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. What I said was we'll bring the proposal to create those 
jobs to the floor--not to cut it, but to spend it because we believe 
that that will create 185,000 jobs. So I just didn't want to be 
misconstrued in what I said.
  The gentleman will have an opportunity to vote against that, of 
course.
  Mr. CANTOR. I apologize, Mr. Speaker, for misunderstanding the 
gentleman.
  I would respond to that statement then by saying the American people 
have told us to stop spending, to stop spending money we don't have. 
And that's the purpose for our sponsoring this provision today, the 
purpose for our launching YouCut, and we will expect to continue to 
have the votes on listening to the American people to begin to cut the 
Federal deficit.
  But, again, Mr. Speaker, in closing, I look forward to working with 
the gentleman from Maryland in a fiscally responsible manner which, 
again, we would hope starts with passing a budget blueprint this year, 
making some of the tough decisions to cut spending just like the 
American families and small business people are doing as we speak.

  And with that, I thank the gentleman for his time, and I yield back.

                          ____________________