[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 48 (Thursday, March 22, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H1519-H1521]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1240
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to my friend from 
Virginia (Mr. Cantor), the majority leader, for the purpose of 
inquiring of the schedule for the week to come.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman from Maryland, the Democratic whip, 
for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning-hour 
and 2 p.m. for legislative business. Votes will be postponed until 6:30 
p.m. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for 
morning-hour and noon for legislative business. On Thursday, the House 
will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business, and the last votes of the 
week are expected no later than 3 p.m. No votes are expected in the 
House on Friday.
  Mr. Speaker, the House will consider a few bills under suspension of 
the rules, which will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. 
The House will also consider H.R. 3309, the Federal Communications 
Commission Process Reform Act, offered by Congressman Greg Walden of 
Oregon. And for the second year in a row, the House will consider and 
pass a budget resolution. Mr. Speaker, we also expect to take further 
action on our Nation's infrastructure, with authority expiring at the 
end of next week. Finally, I am hopeful that the Senate will clear the 
House's bipartisan JOBS Act today. This bill has been delayed too long, 
but I look forward to the President signing it into law.
  I thank the gentleman from Maryland, and I yield back.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his information with respect to 
the legislation that is going to be considered next week.
  I would note that he talks about the highway bill, the infrastructure 
bill that is pending. Obviously, we had expected to consider that bill 
on the House floor. On our side, at least, our expectation was that it 
was going to be considered a number of weeks ago. It has not come to 
the floor here. As I understand it, we are now talking about an 
extension of some period of time. We are concerned that you rightfully, 
personally and as a party, made it very clear that certainty was an 
important aspect of growing our economy. That's a proposition on which 
I agree. I think you are absolutely right. I think that we need to 
create certainty and, clearly, we need to create jobs.
  I said this morning, Mr. Leader, to the press--and I'm sure you get 
it as well--that the public says to me: When are you guys going to 
start working together? When are you going to get something done in a 
bipartisan way?
  The Senate has done that, I will say to my friend. The Senate has 
done it in an overwhelming fashion. They had 74--it would have been 75, 
but Mr. Lautenberg was absent but was for the bill. So 75 percent of 
the Senate, three-quarters of the Senate voted for what was a very 
bipartisan bill. And, as a matter of fact, half the Senate Republicans 
essentially voted for that bill.
  As you know, it had a technical flaw in the bill in that it had 
revenues which need to be initiated in the House of Representatives. 
Representative Tim Bishop of New York has introduced the Senate bill, 
which has overwhelming support in the United States Senate and, very 
frankly, in my view, would have at least 218 votes in this House if it 
were put on the floor.
  The Speaker has said in the past that he is committed to letting the 
House work its will, obviously referring to the open amendments 
process. But if a bill doesn't come to the floor, we have no 
opportunity either to amend or to vote. That's been one of our 
problems, of course, with the jobs bill that the President proposed 
that we had hoped would have been brought to the floor which has not 
been to the floor.
  But I ask my friend, rather than continue to delay--and both sides 
have done that on the highway bill--to give that confidence, of which 
you have spoken and others on your side of the aisle have spoken I 
think absolutely correctly, in order to give the confidence that we 
can, in fact, act, that we can work in a bipartisan fashion, I would 
ask my friend whether or not he, as the majority leader, would be 
prepared to bring the Bishop bill to the floor, which, again, is the 
Senate bill, supported by 75 Members of the United States Senate, half 
of the Republican caucus in the Senate, and which will give some degree 
of certainty for a highway program which clearly is also a jobs bill 
and will have an impact on almost 2 million jobs and maybe another 
million jobs along the way.
  We think that's the way that would be good for our country to 
proceed, and it would send a message--because I think it would get 
bipartisan support if you brought it to the floor--that it would send a 
good message to the country that, yes, from time to time, we can work 
together. And, very frankly, Mr. Leader, if we did that, it would be 
consistent with every transportation bill that we have passed since 
1956 under Dwight Eisenhower, where we worked together in a bipartisan 
fashion. This is the first time that I have experienced a partisan 
divide--I mean, people have had differences of opinion, but a partisan 
divide on the highway bill.
  As you know, Senator Boxer and Senator Inhofe came together to agree. 
I think that's a pretty broad ideological spectrum of the United States 
Senate. They came together, they agreed, and they led the effort to 
pass that bipartisan bill.
  I would very much hope that, Mr. Majority Leader, that you could 
bring that bill to the floor and see whether or not, in fact, it could 
pass. I think that would be good for the country.

[[Page H1520]]

  And I yield to my friend for his comments.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the gentleman.
  And I would respond by saying to him that, no, I'm not prepared to 
bring that bill to the floor because I differ with him in his 
assumption that there would be enough bipartisan support to pass that 
bill in the House. And from all that I know about what's in the Senate 
bill, there is a lot of disagreement over how that bill was 
constructed, as far as House Members are concerned.
  I would say to the gentleman, our plan is very clear. We have been 
outspoken on this. We do not want to disrupt the flow of Federal 
transportation dollars, which is why we will be bringing to the floor 
next week a bill to provide for an extension of 90 days so that 
perhaps, as the gentleman would like, as would I, we could come 
together as two bodies and two parties on an agreement to provide more 
certainty.
  But as to the gentleman's suggestion that we need to be doing this to 
be consistent with what has been done historically, I would say to the 
gentleman, he knows, as well as I, that we are in very, very difficult 
economic times. We have never faced the kind of problems that we face 
today as a country, from a fiscal standpoint. Unfortunately, 
transportation funding is no different. We're just out of money. So 
we're trying to take the approach that most American families and 
businesses would take, that is, to try to spend within our means, to 
come up with some innovative ways to look at transportation needs and 
demands in the future and our being able to meet them, and we look 
forward to working with the gentleman in a bipartisan fashion to try to 
effect that end.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comments. But I will say 
again to the gentleman, we've been down this path before. We've been 
down this path before where the Senate was able to reach a bipartisan 
agreement on legislation very important to jobs, to the economy, and to 
the confidence of America.

                              {time}  1250

  That bipartisan piece of legislation would have enjoyed the support, 
I think, of certainly the overwhelming majority, almost the unanimous 
support on our side on a bipartisan agreement. I don't mean a 
Democratic proposal from the Senate, but a bipartisan agreement that 
came from the Senate. That dealt, of course, with payroll taxes and 
extending those, and ultimately we did that. We took that bill.
  But I would say to my friend that the Speaker indicated he wanted a 
bill on this floor. I've been asking you for approximately a month now 
if it was going to come to the floor. That bill hasn't come to the 
floor. We all know it hasn't come to the floor because there's very 
substantial disagreement within your party about that bill. The papers 
report that. Everybody talks about it. We understand that.
  I say to my friend that he and I do have a disagreement. I think it 
would enjoy bipartisan support on this floor if you brought the Bishop 
bill, the Senate bipartisan bill, to the floor. But the only way we're 
really going to be able to find that out--it's not by me saying, I 
think it would and you saying, I think it wouldn't. There's a very easy 
way to see whether it would, and that is to bring it to the floor next 
week.
  I don't think there is anybody, hopefully, that wants to disrupt and 
have literally hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of work or 
not have opportunities for work. We know the construction trades in 
particular have been very badly hit by the lack of construction that's 
going on.
  You can have your opinion and I can have my opinion, but there is a 
way to determine whether or not, in fact, we can get bipartisan 
agreement; and that is, as I said, and as the Speaker has indicated, 
let the House work its will. The only way the House can work its will--
having been majority leader--is for the majority leader to bring the 
legislation to the floor for a vote. Then you may be right, I may be 
right, but we will know and it won't have to be speculation. We will 
know.
  If I'm right and we do pass that bill, then next week, before March 
31, before the expiration of the current highway authorization, we can 
send a bill to the President of the United States, and he will sign the 
Senate bill. We don't know that he will sign a bill that's still 
languishing in your committee because we haven't seen the final 
parameters of that bill because it is obviously pretty controversial on 
your side of the aisle.
  Again, if you want certainty, we have an opportunity for certainty. 
We have an opportunity with a bipartisan bill that the Senate has 
passed. I don't know why we're rejecting that bipartisanship. The 
gentleman says, well, this is a unique economic time. He's right. It 
seems to me that's a greater argument for trying to embrace a 
bipartisan agreement and move forward with giving certainty to the 
construction industry, to States, to municipalities, and to counties on 
what is going to be available to them to plan and to pursue 
infrastructure projects critical to commerce and to their communities.
  I regret that the gentleman has indicated that's not an option that 
he will consider, but a short-term extension seems to be the 
continuation of uncertainty, not the allaying of uncertainty. I don't 
know whether the gentleman wants to make another comment on that or 
not.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I would just say to the gentleman, I guess 
we are going to agree to disagree. We're dealing with the reality that 
we don't have the money, and we're trying to fashion a path forward 
that both sides can agree upon.
  Obviously, we cannot agree upon that next week with all the 
differences that still exist, which is why we're creating the construct 
of a 90-day extension, which then gives us the possibility to get into 
conference with the Senate to try and produce a longer-term 
transportation funding bill.
  Mr. HOYER. Well, I won't pursue it any further, Mr. Leader, but 
you've been unable to get agreement within your party on this side of 
the Capitol for well over a month. I hope you can get there. I would 
hope you would get there in a bipartisan fashion so that Mr. Rahall and 
Mr. Mica could agree on a bill, which has been my experience in the 31 
years I've been here. It's not my experience this year. That hasn't 
happened. But almost invariably--and I think for the years you've been 
here, you've experienced that as well.
  Let me ask you now with respect to the budget. Do you expect the 
budget to come to the floor? You indicated that. If so, would that be 
Wednesday?
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is correct. We will be 
beginning debate on the budget Wednesday and likely concluding that 
debate and vote on Thursday.
  Mr. HOYER. Normally, as you know, we've had alternatives made in 
order. We, of course, want to make in order an amendment which will 
guarantee that Medicare will be available to our seniors and that we 
will not decimate Medicaid, which we think is appropriate for our 
seniors. We also want to make sure that we have revenues that can 
sustain health care for seniors, education for kids, help for our 
communities.

  Will the gentleman be able to tell me whether or not, in fact, 
alternatives will be made in order by the Rules Committee that would be 
offered either by the minority ranking member of the committee and/or 
others as historically has been the case?
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman, yes, we expect 
that to be the case. Obviously, I disagree with his characterization of 
our budget. We are, in fact, saving the Medicare program in a 
bipartisan fashion.
  Mr. HOYER. Was there a bipartisan vote in the committee on that? I 
thought it was a totally partisan vote in the committee. Was I 
incorrect?
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman that the 
gentleman knows very well what I refer to, that the disproportionate 
cause of our deficit has to do with health care entitlements. And 
actually, as the gentleman knows, last year and this year we are 
proposing a solution, a plan, that does not resolve the issue 
overnight, but it puts us on a path towards balancing the budget.
  This year, our budget chairman has worked together with the Senator 
from Oregon on the gentleman's side of the aisle in the Senate to 
propose a solution that responds to some of the complaints about the 
path that was taken

[[Page H1521]]

before. Again, it is a bipartisan solution. It is a plan to save 
Medicare. Unlike the gentleman's party or his President, we are 
actually proposing a solution to the problem and saving the program for 
this generation and the next.
  Again, I'm sure the gentleman disagrees with my characterization and 
I with his. But to answer his question, to get back on track as far as 
the schedule and the fashion in which these bills are going to be 
brought to the floor, yes, consistent with precedent, we will be 
allowing full substitutes to be offered on both sides of the aisle.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comment.
  The last thing I would ask the gentleman: Am I correct that the 
agreement that was reached between our parties, which led to the 
passage of the Budget Control Act in a bipartisan fashion, does not 
reflect the substance of that agreement as it relates to the 
discretionary spending number for fiscal year 2013? Senator McConnell 
is quoted, as you know, as saying that that was an agreement that was 
reached and that he expected it to be pursued.
  I want to make it clear that he was not referring to the action of 
the Budget Committee, but he was referring to the agreement on the 
discretionary number.
  Am I correct that the agreement that was reached, in order to get a 
bipartisan vote on the Budget Control Act, which we passed, which made 
sure that this country did not default on its debts for the first time 
in history, am I correct that that number is not the number that is 
reflected in the budget?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I respond to the gentleman by saying it is 
our view that the agreement reached in August at the top line was that, 
a cap. We all know we've got to do something about spending in this 
country, and the top line, or 302(a), within our budget resolution will 
reflect that top line provided in the budget resolution for the second 
year of the budget that we posed last year.

                              {time}  1300

  Again, we view it very much that we need to continue to try--at least 
try--to save taxpayer dollars when we are generating over $1 trillion 
of deficits every year, and I think the taxpayers expect no less.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comments, but I will tell 
the gentleman that if we're going to have negotiations, and we have one 
number and you have another number, and we agree on a number, and then 
we pass a bill which reflects that number, put it in law--it doesn't 
say it's a cap; it says that will be the number. As we pass the budget, 
we said that will be the number. Now this is the law. And as was 
observed by others on the other side of the Capitol, but I will observe 
it here as well, if we're going to have those kinds of negotiations, 
it's sort of like the guy who comes up to you and says, look, I've got 
something to sell you, do you want to buy it? And you say, yes, let's 
negotiate on price. And you come to a price of $100. And then you come 
to settle, and the guy says, well, that was my top number. I'm going to 
give you $92 for that item. You don't have a meeting of the minds as a 
contract requires.
  Very frankly, nobody on our side, and frankly I don't think anybody 
on your side that negotiated the deal--I don't mean that didn't vote 
for it--and as a matter of fact, I know for a fact the Speaker, and I 
believe yourself, have been quoted that that was the number and we 
ought to stick with it. Clearly, Mr. Rogers believes that's the number 
that was agreed to.
  Now, we're not going to be able to agree on things if all of a sudden 
it becomes, well, that was a notional thing that we did, not an 
agreement. A lot of our people voted on that to make sure, A, we didn't 
go into default as a country, and, B, that was not the number we 
wanted. It clearly was not the number your side wanted. But it was a 
number we agreed upon. And it seems to me that if we're going to try to 
keep faith with one another and with the law that we passed that we 
should stick with what we agreed to.
  I understand that we want to bring the budget deficit down. As a 
matter of fact, on this side of the aisle, I've made those comments, 
and I've been criticized by some on my side, as you well know. Yes, we 
do need to get a handle on the budget. We're going to have a real 
debate on the deficit and debt, and I've been working very hard on 
that. We're going to have a debate, a fulsome debate, hopefully, on 
whether or not your budget does that. We've had disagreements all the 
years I've been here on that, and performance has not reflected, from 
my standpoint, that the representations made have always worked out, 
perhaps on either side.
  But I regret, I regret deeply, Mr. Majority Leader, that we've 
reached an agreement, and based upon that agreement, this House took an 
action, it took a bipartisan action, and it passed a piece of 
legislation that was critically important to make sure that America did 
not go into default. And now we see 7 months later, crossed fingers, 
well, we really didn't mean that, it was a cap. Nobody on our side--
there was no mention in the law nor was there any mention in the 
negotiations that that was a cap, not a number.
  Unless the gentleman wants to say something further, I yield to my 
friend.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I'd just say to the gentleman this is 
somewhat of an academic discussion given that the Senate is not going 
to pass a budget. And I remind the gentleman, again, it takes two 
Houses to go and reconcile a budget, and it takes two Houses and two 
parties to actually go forward. So we look forward to working with the 
gentleman. I told him it is our belief that we need to respond to the 
urgency of the fiscal crisis and do everything we can to bring down the 
level of spending in this town. I look forward to working with the 
gentleman towards that end.
  Mr. HOYER. I look forward to next week debating how we bring that 
deficit down, and I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________