[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 29 (Thursday, February 28, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H801-H804]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend the majority leader, Mr. 
Cantor, for the purposes 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. The last votes of the 
week are expected no later than 3 p.m. On Friday, the House is not in 
session.
  Mr. Speaker, the House will consider a number of suspensions on 
Monday and Tuesday, a complete list of which will be announced by the 
close of business tomorrow. In addition, the House will consider a 
resolution to fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year. 
I expect the resolution to also include bipartisan bills to fund the 
Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, thus providing more 
flexibility to our military and allowing the Pentagon to engage in new 
starts, something it would not be allowed to do under the CR.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to highlight two additional items.
  On Tuesday, the House passed legislation to establish a nationwide 
academic competition in the STEM fields. This competition will 
encourage entrepreneurship and provide a unique opportunity for 
America's high school and college students in each congressional 
district to showcase their creative capabilities.
  I thank Chairman Candice Miller and Ranking Member Brady for their 
hard work in making this bipartisan program possible, and I look 
forward to the success of the competition for years to come and of the 
benefit it will provide our institution.
  Lastly, Mr. Speaker, I would like to highlight the Congressional 
Civil Rights Pilgrimage occurring this Friday through Sunday in 
Alabama, led by Congressman John Lewis--a true American hero and 
champion of civil rights and freedom. A bipartisan delegation of 
Members will participate in the 3-day journey through Alabama, 
concluding with the commemoration of the 1965 civil rights march across 
the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.
  Alongside the Democratic whip, I am honored to participate in this 
pilgrimage and to reflect on the sacrifice that shaped the greater 
democracy we live in today.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for the information. I also thank 
him for his reference to the march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge from 
Selma to Montgomery, which we will commemorate. That march occurred on 
March 7, 1965.
  Yesterday, we had the honor of dedicating and accepting a statue in 
memory of Rosa Louise Parks. Rosa Parks, of course, is known in many 
respects as the mother of the civil rights movement that led to 
America's perfecting its Union--to its allowing and making sure that 
every American, irrespective of race or color or nationality or 
religion, could be treated equally. It's appropriate that we 
participate in this march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge to recall 
this country's commitment in 1965 to the Voting Rights Act, which 
ensured that every American would have what is intrinsic in the 
definition of democracy--the right to vote and the right to have one's 
vote counted.
  I look forward to being the honorary cochair--with the majority 
leader--of this march with a true American hero, who is the chair, the 
leader, the person who has shown such extraordinary courage, not only 
on March 7, 1965, but years before that and every year thereafter, 
including until today.

                              {time}  1210

  So I thank the gentleman for calling attention to that march, and I 
look forward to participating with him in Alabama this weekend.
  Now, Mr. Leader, as all of us know, automatic, draconian--in my view, 
irrational--cuts will occur starting tomorrow as a result of the so-
called sequester. I did not see any legislation on the floor for next 
week which would obviate the happening of that event, the sequester, 
although I do see that there is some desire, apparently, to make sure 
that the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs have 
the ability to manage those cuts in a way that will be least 
detrimental.
  I would ask the gentleman--there are, of course, 10 other 
appropriation bills; there are 10 other major agencies and multiple 
departments and offices that will have a problem similar to that of the 
Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration--is the gentleman 
aware of any efforts that will be made to accommodate the domestic side 
of the budget?
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding; and I 
would say, Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman knows, the House has acted 
twice to offer alternatives to what we agree with is a very wrong way 
to go about cuts, which is the sequestration measure. But 
unfortunately, both times the Senate rejected or refused to take up the 
alternative. I'm aware that the other body is anticipating or at least 
attempting to vote on an alternative, both of which are predicted to 
fail in the Senate.
  So I would say to the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, that he's right in 
saying that our intent is to try to provide the flexibility for the 
Defense Department in terms of its appropriations, as well as the 
MilCon bill; and we do so because there is bipartisan agreement around 
those two bills.
  I would say to the gentleman that if bipartisan agreement somehow is 
reached in other bills, I would say to the gentleman we certainly would 
like to be able to take a look at that. But I believe, Mr. Speaker, it 
is prudent for us to try to do the things that we can do right now so 
that we don't have to bear the burden of the wrongheaded way of 
controlling spending, which is that sequestration.

[[Page H802]]

  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comments. Let me only 
observe that the bills which the gentleman has now discussed for 3 
weeks running, on which we've had colloquies, are no longer available 
in either the Senate or the House. He knows that. They were in the last 
Congress, and they died in the last Congress. There has been no 
legislation in the 59 days that we've been here, put on this floor, and 
only the majority leader can put legislation on the floor, no 
legislation which would have an alternative to the sequester.
  And, in fact, notwithstanding some of the representations that have 
been made, Mr. Speaker, there was a bill on this floor on July 19, 
2011, which was called cut, cap, and balance; 229 Republicans voted for 
that bill. That bill had as its fallback, if the objectives of the bill 
were not reached, sequester. That was substantially before--many days 
before--the President, and through the person of Jack Lew, talked about 
making that a part of a piece of legislation that we needed so that we 
did not default on the national debt. And for the first time, not only 
since I've been serving in the Congress, some 32 years, but for the 
first time in history, as a result of that action of coming so close to 
defaulting on the national debt, this country was downgraded by a 
single point.
  The gentleman talked about the STEM bill that was passed. He voted 
for it. I voted for it. An overwhelming majority of Democrats and 
Republicans voted for it to help our economy. That event substantially 
hurt our economy. Mr. Speaker, the inability to get to agreement on the 
sequester is hurting the economy. And I will tell my friend that we've 
offered three times to have a bill considered as an alternative to 
sequester which cuts spending, raises some additional revenue--and I 
know the gentleman is going to give me a lecture about raising taxes. I 
understand that.

  But I would urge the gentleman, let a vote happen on this floor. Let 
the House, as you said in 2010, work its will. That's what the Speaker 
said he wanted to do. Let us vote on an alternative, not just blindly 
go down this road of sequester, not blindly go down this road that the 
gentleman has just agreed with me, and we agree together, I think most 
of us agree, the sequester is irrational. It should not happen. In 
fact, it was put in the bill on the theory that surely we wouldn't let 
it happen. But in 59 days, we've had no bill on this floor. All the 
gentleman talks about is a bill that is dead and gone and buried that 
we can't consider, that won't make a difference, that will not in any 
way ameliorate the sequester. And I regret that, Mr. Leader, because I 
think we can.
  Frankly, next week we can put alternatives on the floor. If you have 
an alternative, put it on the floor. I may vote against it, but that's 
what the American people expect. They expect us to try to solve 
problems, and they sent us here to vote on policy.
  Mr. Van Hollen, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, has 
asked three times, Mr. Leader, to bring an amendment to this floor to 
provide an alternative to sequester.
  It seems strange that when both of us agree that sequester is wrong, 
irrational, will have adverse effects, and Ben Bernanke says it will 
substantially hurt the economy, that we don't provide alternatives, and 
all we talk about is something that we yesterday--actually, 3 or 4 
months ago--that is dead and gone. We need to do something now, and we 
need to come together on a bipartisan basis.
  I might say to the leader, we've had four major bills signed into law 
in this Congress by the President. Every one of those bills was passed 
in a bipartisan basis with an average of 168 Democrats voting for it, 
and an average of 124 Republicans voting for it. We saw a perfect 
example, Mr. Leader, on the floor today of making very good policy. How 
did we do it? We did it in a bipartisan vote. I suggest to my friend, 
the majority leader, that we could do that as it relates to the 
sequester if we would bring something to the floor, have a vote on it; 
and in my view in a bipartisan fashion, we could in fact set aside this 
irrational, negative sequester, and move on to a rational fiscal 
policy.
  I would be glad to yield to my friend if he wants to make a comment 
on it.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  First of all, there would not be a bipartisan vote on the Democratic 
suggestion on how to deal with the sequester. As the gentleman 
rightfully suggests, that measure will include tax increases. You know, 
we've heard a lot of talk about balance, that we need to approach the 
situation in a balanced way. Well, the President has enacted $149.7 
billion worth of tax increases for this fiscal year. Sequestration 
results in $85.3 billion worth of spending reductions.
  As you can see, Mr. Speaker, the balance is clearly in favor of tax 
increases, taking people's money and then allowing Washington to decide 
how to spend it when most people realize the government is never the 
best one to spend and allocate someone else's dollars, which is why we 
insist on having a limited government, providing the necessary support 
and roles that it should, and not continuing to take other people's 
money and deciding how we spend it.
  Now, I'd say to the gentleman, he knows as well as I do that the 
Senate refuses to take up whatever we send them. They have refused 
again and again. So we've got a real problem that somehow one House 
does its work. Twice this House went and passed bills with alternative 
measures to address sequestration, and a significant portion of both of 
those bills, one of which I sponsored, were provisions taken out of the 
President's own budget, not the tax increases, but actually spending 
reductions that the President says are okay, but yet still the Senate 
failed to take them up.

                              {time}  1220

  So there's a meeting tomorrow at the White House, Mr. Speaker, and I 
know the gentleman shares the desire to perhaps have that meeting prod 
the Senate into acting. That's what we need to happen. The House does 
its work. The House can produce a plan, and has, twice, to replace this 
sequester.
  Now, I'd say to the gentleman, he's concerned about the economy, and 
so are we, very concerned about the economy. We're concerned about the 
rating agencies' outlook on our fiscal situation as well, as the 
gentleman suggests. But, I'd like to remind the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, 
that the warnings from these rating agencies are not warnings that are 
wholly addressed by just coming to some deal. Those warnings from the 
rating agencies are directed at our doing something about the 
underlying fiscal problem this Federal Government has, which is the 
mountains of debt caused by the growth and the unfunded liabilities in 
our entitlement programs. And, as the gentleman knows, we failed to 
come to agreement in 2011 as to how to deal with those unfunded 
liabilities, which is why the sequestration is in place.
  We've got to have that deal on the unfunded liabilities because 
that's what those warnings are about. That's what we should be 
concerned about, not raising more taxes. Those warnings are not about 
raising more taxes. It's about getting rid of the out-of-control 
liabilities that are racked up because of the spending, which is out of 
control.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comments.
  It doesn't get--we've been here 59 days, in this Congress. Not a 
single bill has been brought to this floor which will deal with the 
sequester, not one. As a matter of fact, we've only met 17 of the 59 
days this year. So my friend laments the fact that the sequester is 
going into effect and he talks about bills that, as he didn't deny, 
they're dead and gone. The Senate can't take them up.
  So many folks want us to read the Constitution of the United States. 
I'm for doing that. It's Article I that gives to the House, as the 
leader, I'm sure, knows, the responsibility to raise revenues and to 
pass appropriation bills. It's the House that needs to initiate 
legislation, and we guard that pretty jealously. We guarded it--we just 
passed VAWA. There was a lot of discussion about VAWA having--in the 
last Congress, that passed overwhelmingly, was delayed because, very 
frankly, they had some money effect in that bill. We said that was 
subject, therefore, to objections on our side.
  We haven't met very often, and when we do meet, the only real bills 
we pass are passed in a bipartisan fashion, as happened today.

[[Page H803]]

  And when we talk about balance--and I get very frustrated. Take 
somebody else's money. Did you want to take it out of your pocket? Was 
the Constitution of the United States, which formed a more perfect 
Union, designed to take the Chinese money or European money and fund 
our education, our health care research, our highways, our national 
security? Of course not.
  It is our money. Each one of us individually works hard, and we 
apportion a part of our earnings to the common good, to the common 
defense, to the common investment in our future, in education, in 
innovation, in infrastructure. Yes, we do that.
  And I will tell my friend, and he well knows this, I get somewhat 
frustrated when I hear this. When I served in this Congress from 2001 
to 2008, when the economic policy that was in effect was all your 
party's economic policy, and you cut revenues substantially and you 
increased spending substantially and we went from surplus to deep 
deficit, we need to solve that. I agree with the gentleman. We need to 
solve it, but we need to do it on a bipartisan basis.
  That's why I point out the only bills of substance that have been 
signed by the President, that weren't suspension bills on which we all 
agree, were bipartisan bills that had an average 124 Republicans voting 
for them and an average 168 Democrats voting for them. Both parties 
joined together to solve problems. That's what needs to happen.
  And I will tell the gentleman, he can talk about confidence all he 
wants, talk about why the rating agencies downgraded us. There were a 
number of reasons. But the greatest reason was--and they articulated 
it, Standard & Poor's articulated it--they weren't confident that we 
could solve problems, and we're not doing that.
  The gentleman continues to not want a balanced program. Every group, 
every group that I've seen or read about or talked to people about has 
said, you cannot get from where we are in the deep debt that was 
created in the last decade to where we need to be, a balanced fiscal 
and sustainable plan for America for the years to come, without 
addressing both the spending side and the revenue side.
  The example I use is, we are selling a product, Mr. Leader, that many 
of us have voted for it, and you want to accommodate on the defense 
side, which costs $23, and we are pricing it at $15. No business in 
America or in the world could survive with that imbalance. We need to 
bring that in balance. And you're not going to get to the 15 percent of 
revenues that we're collecting, or now maybe 16 or 17 percent, simply 
by savaging either defense or non-defense spending or entitlements.
  And so I would certainly hope, Mr. Leader, that we would come 
together. You and I have talked about this a lot. Every Member goes 
home and says how bipartisan we're going to be.
  On our side, I will tell you, we are prepared. We understand there 
are going to be things that we have to do that we won't like. On your 
side there will be things to do that you won't like. That will be a 
compromise. That's the definition of a compromise. Our country needs 
it. Americans want it.
  I would hope that we could, in the coming days, not only address the 
sequester, but address the need, over the next 10 years, to get this 
country back to balance where we were in 2000, where we had a balanced 
budget, the debt was coming down, and, in fact, some people were 
concerned that it was coming down too fast.
  Mr. CANTOR. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. CANTOR. I appreciate the gentleman's yielding, Mr. Speaker.
  The gentleman loves to go back and talk about that period from 2001 
to 2008 and the fact that there were too many tax cuts in place and 
without the control in spending.
  Mr. HOYER. Can I just reclaim my time? Because my point, I'll tell 
the leader, is that we didn't pay for what we bought. We kept buying 
but we didn't pay.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I was saying that there were too many tax 
cuts in place. And I agree with the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, not on the 
fact that there were tax reductions and cuts in place, but the fact 
there wasn't a control on spending. And that is a problem here, Mr. 
Speaker.
  But, ironically, the gentleman has consistently been in support of 
and just voted to extend 98 percent of those tax cuts. And so what 
we're saying right now is we've got to do something about the spending.
  You just got $650 billion in tax increases, Mr. Speaker, over the 
course of the next 10 years through the fiscal cliff deal. And I, just 
prior, spoke about the imbalance this year, FY 2013, of the amount of 
new revenues versus the actual spending that is being projected to be 
reduced in this sequester.
  I agree, let's get back to balance. Let's go ahead and increase the 
spending reductions. Washington does have that spending problem. The 
gentleman agrees.
  So, again, I think it's unfair to say that there's just no agreement 
on the fact that we ought to go and reduce tax rates and taxes, because 
the gentleman supports doing that. So let's talk about balance.
  And we've got the highest level of revenues. It's been reported that 
we have the highest level of revenues coming into the Federal 
Government this year, ever. And the gentleman does know, as well, the 
spending is out of proportion in terms of history, in terms of the 
percentage of GDP. So why can't we focus on that? We've got to get this 
economy growing.
  And the gentleman is correct in saying the government needs to be 
adequately funded, but we've got to take a look at what we're funding. 
That's what we're talking about in replacing the sequester is 
prioritizing. What are the functions of government? And the sequester, 
it does cut spending, but we'd rather cut it in smarter ways.

                              {time}  1230

  Again, I hear the gentleman talked about he would like to be here on 
the floor passing bills. We would, too. Get the Senate to act. We have 
a bicameral process here, and the Senate has not acted.
  The White House, the President hasn't even sent up his budget, Mr. 
Speaker. The President has that obligation at law and has not presented 
his budget to the House. The Senate refuses to do anything.
  And what is the White House doing right now? The President has been 
going around the country campaigning for the past 2 months scaring 
people, creating havoc. That's supposed to be leadership? The President 
says to the Americans that their food is going to go uninspected and 
that our borders will be less patrolled and unsafe. His Cabinet 
Secretaries are holding press conferences and conducting TV interviews, 
making false claims about teacher layoffs.
  I just feel that people ought to take a look and say, hey, these 
sequester spending levels--not the sequester, but the spending levels, 
and say, in 2009 was food not inspected? Because that's what the claim 
is, Mr. Speaker, that somehow if we were ever to reduce spending at 
all, we couldn't have food inspectors. Did we have any border patrol 
agents in 2009? Of course we did; of course we did. They will be funded 
at the same levels under the sequester. And that's our point: replacing 
the sequester with smart cuts.
  But the other side, Mr. Speaker, the gentleman and his Caucus, won't 
join us in doing that, because all we hear again and again is: Raise 
taxes. And I have said, as the gentleman knows, we can't, in this town, 
be raising taxes every 3 months. That's just not the way we can get 
this economy back on track.
  Did the FAA shut down in 2009? That's the claim. That's the claim 
that the President is saying: Shut down the FAA, stop air travel as we 
know it, or give us higher taxes. That's the false choice that this 
President and his administration are out there hawking. We can't have 
that. That's not leadership. Let's come together.
  I agree with the gentleman. Let's stop the false choice, stop the 
games, and let's get it done.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman said a lot, and I could have a 
lot of comments on that, but I will say this. As long as the gentleman 
believes it's only us saying that we need a balanced program, he will 
oppose it because we are Democrats.
  If the gentleman listens to independent advice all over this country, 
from all sorts of sources, Republicans

[[Page H804]]

and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, they will say you need a 
balanced approach. We need to cut spending. We need to restrain 
spending and we need to balance the cost of what we provide with the 
income that we have. Every businessperson, small, medium, and large, 
understands that concept. We have not followed it, and we did not 
follow it in the last decade.
  I regret the fact that the gentleman doesn't like the President going 
around the country and telling the truth saying what the consequences 
may well be. Now, are they going to be on March 1? No. But will they 
inevitably occur if the sequester stays in place? The answer to that I 
think is an emphatic, ``Yes.'' I think the President is going around 
the country saying these are the alternatives.
  And saying that the Senate won't act or the President won't act--
people did not elect me, I will tell you, to make the President act or 
to make the Senate act. They didn't think I could do that. What they 
did think I could do was make Steny Hoyer act. And if I were the 
majority leader, they expected me to have the House act, even if people 
didn't agree with legislation I put on the floor. They expect us to do 
our job, not to cop out, with all due respect, to the fact that the 
President is not doing something or the Senate is not doing something.
  We have a responsibility here in this Chamber, the people's House, as 
representatives of 435 districts, to do our job. And if the other folks 
don't do their job, we can lament that, we can criticize them, we can 
inform the American public of that, but we cannot say that's why we are 
not acting.
  So I would hope that next week we would, in fact, act and bring 
legislation to the floor. And I would be, as the gentleman knows, my 
friend knows, I'm for a big deal. I'm for getting us to that $4 
trillion that Simpson-Bowles recommended, because I think that would 
give real confidence to our economy, really grow businesses and put our 
country on a fiscally sustainable path.
  I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________