[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 23 (Wednesday, February 13, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H457-H458]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             SEQUESTRATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the President spoke to us last night and he 
talked to us about avoiding the sequester. I was at a political event 
being interviewed and a gentleman, Mr. Pompeo from Kansas, was with us 
as well, and he spoke before I did. He talked about the sequester and 
he said:

       It's going to be a home run. We're doing what the American 
     people ask the United States House of Representatives to do 
     in 2010 when I came here.

  He then said, in referring to the sequester:

       I think the American people . . . will have tremendous 
     respect for what its House of Representatives led and what 
     its Federal Government was able to accomplish.

  A profound disagreement. I think the gentleman from Kansas is 
profoundly wrong. The sequester will have an extraordinarily negative 
effect on this country, on its people, on its economy, and on its 
national security, and I might say on the confidence that the world at 
large has in the United States' ability to pursue rational policy.
  In the State of the Union address last night, Mr. Speaker, with 
regard to deficits, the President said this:

       None of us will get 100 percent of what we want. But the 
     alternative will cost us jobs, hurt our economy, and visit 
     hardship on millions of hardworking Americans.

  He went on to say:

       The greatest Nation on Earth cannot keep conducting its 
     business by drifting from one manufactured crisis to the 
     next.

  Every 30 days, every 60 days, every 90 days, a manufactured crisis, 
evidence of a dysfunctional and willful Congress.
  He went on to say:

       Let's agree right here, right now, to keep the people's 
     Government open, pay our bills on time, and always uphold the 
     full faith and credit of the United States of America.

  That seems to be reasonable policy.
  We now have two and a half weeks before the sequester takes effect, 
with devastating consequences for our economy and national security, 
yet the gentleman from Kansas welcomes that policy. In fact, the 
Republican leadership of this House has not put a single bill on the 
floor in this Congress that would have any impact on avoiding the 
sequester.
  We now find ourselves facing yet another manufactured crisis. Instead 
of preventing it, as I've said, Republicans appear to be willing and 
enthusiastically welcoming the sequester.
  Mr. Speaker, every American ought to take note of that enthusiasm for 
an irrational policy, referred to as irrational by its own leader, Mr. 
Cantor, who said it was not the way we ought to do business. He's 
right, but he's brought nothing to the floor to avoid it.
  The sequester, though, was meant to be so undesirable an outcome that 
it would force us to agree on a better approach. It married the worst 
consequences for both parties when it came to spending cuts: 
indiscriminate cuts to the defense budget alongside cuts to critical 
domestic programs.
  In politics, often the key to compromise is crafting a package that 
contains something, some provision that everyone can love, although 
everyone will not love every provision. Here, Congress took the 
opposite approach and included something everyone could despise.
  A faction of the majority, which is not a majority of this House by 
itself, has become so zealous in its drive to pursue a spending-only 
approach that it has embraced the sequester's Draconian cuts. Mr. 
Pompeo's quote this morning affirms that assertion.
  They've used their clout within the majority to hold Congress hostage 
from one manufactured crisis to the next, and they nearly brought us to 
the edge of default for a second time last year. There have been 
several reports in a number of news outlets that Speaker Boehner 
promised their faction that the topline for appropriations would not 
exceed the level it would be after sequestration cuts, already adopting 
the premise that sequestration has gone into effect.
  It was further reported that while the sequester levels would be 
kept, the cuts would be rearranged in order to protect defense spending 
at the further detriment to domestic parties, like NIH, cancer 
research, heart research, prostate cancer research, diabetes research, 
all the other maladies that--Dr. Bera is sitting here shaking his

[[Page H458]]

head--afflict us in this country and around the world.
  By injecting additional partisanship in this way, Republicans would 
be taking a further step away from compromise. We need compromise. Each 
of us in this body understands we represent a certain segment of 
society, but not everybody agrees with everything we believe. 
Therefore, if we are to act on behalf of the country in a responsible, 
effective fashion, it's necessary to compromise.
  Mr. Speaker, the sequester is real and is rapidly approaching. It is 
not a rational approach to deficit reduction. Even Republican Leader 
Cantor, as I said, admitted on ``Meet the Press'' on Sunday about the 
sequester, and I quote the Republican leader:

       I don't want to live with the sequester.

  Let me repeat that.

       I do not want to live with the sequester. I want reductions 
     in spending that make sense.

  These indiscriminate reductions don't make sense. That's what Mr. 
Pompeo was welcoming: indiscriminate cuts that do not make sense. We 
need serious action in Congress to deal with the sequester, and that 
action cannot wait. But there's been nothing on the floor in this 
Congress to deal with that sequester--nothing. Not a single piece of 
legislation has been brought forth by the majority.
  I used to be the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, and I had the power to 
bring legislation forward, and I would do it. I'm no longer the 
majority leader. The majority leader, notwithstanding this quote that 
these indiscriminate reductions don't make sense, has not brought an 
alternative to this floor.
  Democrats are ready to make tough choices, and we're ready to work 
with Republicans to do what is necessary to solve this problem of our 
deficits in a balanced way. We must reduce spending, but we also need 
to raise revenues. Every bipartisan commission, everyone has said the 
only way you're going to solve the arithmetic is to do so.
  Mr. Speaker, I'm going to yield back the balance of my time so that 
my colleagues have an opportunity to say their piece, but I lament the 
fact that we're going home next week. We ought to be here working to 
avoid what the majority leader says are indiscriminate cuts that are 
not the way to do business. Yet, we rush headlong to do that.

                              {time}  1010

  I hope the Senate acts. I hope the Senate passes a bill that will be 
rational, will get us out of this conundrum of a sequester that nobody 
should want, and that when it does, Majority Leader Cantor and Speaker 
Boehner will bring it to the floor and let us vote. And if you don't 
like it, vote against it. But let the American people know where we 
stand.
  Let us avoid the sequester. Let us get ourselves on a fiscally 
balanced path, but let us do so responsibly.

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