[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 108 (Thursday, July 25, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5072-H5077]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1145
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the majority leader, Mr. Cantor of 
Virginia, for the purpose of inquiring as to the schedule for the week 
to come.
  Mr. CANTOR. I thank the Democratic whip for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, on Monday, the House is not in session.
  On Tuesday, 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 Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for 
morning-hour and noon for legislative business.

[[Page H5073]]

  On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. 
Last votes of the week are expected no later than 3 p.m.
  Mr. Speaker, the House will consider a number of bills under 
suspension of the rules, a complete list of which will be announced by 
the close of business tomorrow.
  Yesterday, Mr. Speaker, the Senate acted on the student loan bill the 
House passed last month, and I expect the House to deal with it 
promptly next week. In addition, I expect to consider H.R. 2610, the 
Fiscal Year 2014 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development 
Appropriations Act, authored by Representative Tom Latham.
  Mr. Speaker, Members are advised that the House will begin 
consideration of this bill on Tuesday afternoon and should be prepared 
to offer amendments at the appropriate time in the reading of the bill. 
Members are further advised that the 6:30 p.m. vote series that day 
could be longer than normal.
  For the remainder of the week, Mr. Speaker, the House will consider a 
number of bills to restrain a runaway government and re-empower our 
citizens. To stop government abuse and protect the middle class, we 
will first bring a number of bipartisan bills to the floor under 
suspension of the rules on Wednesday. Following that, we will debate 
two bills pursuant to rules focusing again on stopping government abuse 
and protecting the middle class.
  The first, H.R. 367, the REINS Act, sponsored by Representative Todd 
Young, requires congressional approval of regulations that cost over 
$100 million. The second, H.R. 2009, the Keep the IRS Off Your Health 
Care Act, sponsored by Representative Tom Price, prevents the IRS from 
implementing any portion of ObamaCare. When Federal bureaucrats abuse 
their power and waste taxpayer dollars, liberty is eroded, the economy 
is slowed, and the rule of law betrayed.
  I thank the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his information.
  I don't see on the schedule, Mr. Speaker, that we are going to a 
budget conference. At least there's no notice from the majority leader 
of that fact. Mr. Speaker, as you know, we are facing a number of 
critical deadlines. It has now been 125 days since the House passed a 
budget and 123 days since the Senate passed a budget. On issue after 
issue, our Republican colleagues, Mr. Speaker, have passed bills and 
then refused to negotiate. Mr. Speaker, it's past time for action. We 
should go to conference and reach an agreement. I would urge my friend, 
the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, to go to conference.
  One of his colleagues, Mr. Speaker, from Virginia said this: ``I am 
proudly on record about this. I believe we need to go to conference,'' 
speaking of the budget. This Member went on to say, ``I have listened 
carefully to the argument that we should not go to conference, and 
frankly I do not find it compelling.''
  Mr. Speaker, that was Representative Scott Rigell of Virginia.
  I would ask my friend, the majority leader, does the gentleman expect 
that we will go to conference at all on the budget?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his tenacity, as 
this is a weekly discussion between he and I, and I'm delighted to 
respond to say to the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, that it is something that 
we should commit ourselves to working out. But as the gentleman knows, 
the position of the majority is that we don't want to enter into 
discussions if the prerequisite is you have to raise taxes.
  The gentleman has heard me every week on this issue in that we 
believe strongly you fix the problem of overspending and you reform the 
programs needing reform to address unfunded liabilities first. Then, if 
the gentleman is insistent that the taxpayers need to pay more of their 
hard-earned dollars into Washington, that discussion, perhaps, is 
appropriate. But as a prerequisite for entering budget talks that we 
agree to raise taxes is not something, I think, that the American 
people want this body to engage in.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comment.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's premise is absolutely incorrect, and the 
American people ought to know that. The Senate hasn't voted to go to 
conference because the Republican Members of the United States Senate 
won't vote to go to conference. There was nothing in that motion, 
however, that said there was a prerequisite that the House agreed to 
anything, Mr. Speaker. Nothing.
  Now, my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, has said repeatedly 
that we have a prerequisite. We have a difference of opinion. That's 
what democracy is about. There's no prerequisite. There's no 
precondition. There's no condition precedent, as we lawyers say, for 
going to conference. Number one, the Senate couldn't make us agree. 
That's what conferences are about, Mr. Speaker. They're about coming 
together and understanding there are differences. There would be no 
need for a conference if there weren't differences. There are 
differences.
  We're $91 billion apart, Mr. Speaker, on our budgets. We are 14 days 
away from the end of this fiscal year, Mr. Speaker, in terms of 
legislative days available to us to get to a compromise, to get to a 
number, to get to some understanding of how we are going to ensure that 
government operations continue. There's no prerequisite. There's no 
precondition. I don't know where that comes from, Mr. Speaker. I've 
heard it a lot. I have no idea where it comes from.
  Nothing the Senate does can force this body, Republicans or 
Democrats, to do something. What they have asked is come to the table 
and talk. There has been a refusal to do that, Mr. Speaker, and it's 
bad for the country.
  A $91 billion difference between us on budgets has to be resolved 
somehow, some way. And the way democracies do it and the way the 
legislature does it, Mr. Speaker is to meet and try to resolve those 
differences. Now, you can divide the differences in half. The Senate 
comes down 46, we go up 45. My own view is Mr. Ryan believes there's 
nothing he will agree to. I'll get to that a little later, Mr. Speaker. 
That's why we're not going to conference, and he said so in the paper. 
He didn't say it about the conference, but I'll get to his quote in 
just a second.
  Mr. Speaker, the majority leader mentioned that the T-HUD 
appropriation bill is on the floor next week. So far, Mr. Speaker, we 
are now essentially going to be at the end of the session before the 
August break coming next week on Friday, and we've done four 
appropriation bills. The House T-HUD bill of which the majority leader 
speaks, Mr. Speaker, is 17 percent below the Budget Control Act that we 
agreed on. Not only that, Mr. Speaker, it's 9 percent below the 
sequester level.

  Now, we're not going to vote for it, Mr. Speaker. We believe it badly 
underfunds, transportation, housing, and infrastructure in this 
country, but this performance makes some sense considering the lack of 
regular order. We talk about regular order, but we don't follow it. 
Going to conference is regular order. It doesn't change the fact, 
however, that we just have 14 days left to go and that we need to reach 
agreement.
  I will tell my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, that we are 
willing to work together. We have been willing to compromise. We have 
compromised. In every one of these agreements we've reached, we've 
compromised. My friend, the majority leader, would say, yes, and they 
have, as well. But you cannot compromise if you don't sit down.
  I will tell you nobody has called me to ask me how I believe we can 
get to the end of this year with a continuing resolution. Nobody's 
asked me that. I talked to Mr. Ryan and Mr. Van Hollen. Mr. Ryan has 
not talked to Mr. Van Hollen. With all due respect to this discussion 
about their talking, they're not talking. I talked to Senator Murray. 
No discussion of how we resolve the differences. I talked to the chair 
of the Appropriations Committee, both the ranking member here, Mrs. 
Lowey, and the chair on the Senate side, Senator Mikulski. Nobody is 
talking to them about how we resolve the question at the end of next 
month. And we won't be here at the end of next month. We're in session 
2 weeks in September.
  I want to use a quote:

       But we should not pass a continuing resolution, and I will 
     not vote for a continuing resolution unless we talk about 
     preconditions for going to conference.


[[Page H5074]]


  Talk about preconditions. Talk about demands and ultimatums:

       I will not vote for a continuing resolution unless it 
     defunds ObamaCare for the period of time of the continuing 
     resolution.

  Nobody in America believes that's going to be done. A lot of people, 
I know the majority leader would tell me, want it done. But we had an 
election. The President won. He won't sign the defunding of ObamaCare 
because he believes it's in the best interest of the health of our 
people and the welfare of our country, and, yes, even job creation and 
economic growth. But Marco Rubio says he won't vote for a continuing 
resolution unless it does something that's not going to happen. The 
majority leader, Mr. Speaker, said they weren't going to go to 
conference--another ultimatum--unless the Senate abandoned its point of 
view. The Senate has a right to its point of view. We have a right to 
our point of view. We need to discuss it. That's the way you get things 
done in a democracy, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the majority leader, Does the gentleman 
expect that we will go to conference at all, at any time on the budget?
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I 
appreciate his question.
  I would note for the record that I believe, if I have my facts 
correct, that during the time that the gentleman was in the majority 
last, the last Congress, the 111th, 48 times there was an avoidance of 
going to conference. All of the sudden the gentleman says that that's 
the panacea.
  So I would tell the gentleman, given his litany of examples of who's 
talking to whom around here, there is a lot of talk about how we 
resolve our differences. In fact, I do know that Chairman Ryan is 
talking to Chairman Murray across the Capitol of how we go forward. But 
I would underscore again to the gentleman that it is not our intention 
to discuss taking more hard-earned taxpayer dollars from Americans 
while we have not fixed the problem they expect us to fix.
  I'd also say to the gentleman that as far as appropriation bills are 
concerned, he is correct that I did announce that the T-HUD bill would 
be coming to the floor next week, and it will be the fifth bill that we 
will do prior to the August work period. I would remind the gentleman 
that when he was last in the position of the majority, the 
appropriations bills did not come to the floor under an open process. 
In fact, there were structured rules on every one, if my memory serves 
me well. It's much easier that way to shut out diverse opinion. But 
instead, the Speaker has this Congress insist that we have an open 
process and allow for robust debate on some of the very difficult 
issues. The gentleman knows we have been true to that word.
  So I remind the gentleman that, yes, there is a commitment to open 
process; there is a commitment here to trying to resolve these 
challenges before us. The gentleman is correct, we're going to have a 
very busy fall trying to address the needs of this country, whether it 
is the spending and budget needs or whether it is the needs of the 
middle class families who are struggling out there every single day 
wondering when the economy is going to pick up, wondering what's going 
to happen to their health care.

                              {time}  1200

  We have a looming ObamaCare law that already the administration has 
admitted is threatening job growth. Therefore, they offer relief to 
businesses but refuse to do so for working people. We don't think 
that's too fair. We have Democratic union leaders who have said that 
this law is going to provide and has already created nightmare 
scenarios for millions of working Americans insofar as their health 
care and economic well-being are concerned. There are real issues to be 
resolved, Mr. Speaker, and I do hope that the gentleman will abide by 
what I know he has always been for, and that's solving problems. I do 
hope that he will work with us to do that in the coming months.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman's recitation of 
history. Let me remind him, the first year I was majority leader, all 
12 appropriations bills passed the House prior to the August break--all 
12. That also happened the third year. It didn't happen the second year 
when we had a lot of political delays. And the reason we went to 
structured rules, as the gentleman I'm sure recalls, because we had 
filibuster by amendment. We had delay and obstruction in 2007, just as 
we have delay and obstruction today, just as there is a refusal today 
to go to conference. Over 120 days after both Houses have passed their 
budgets, we still have refusal to go to conference. That is why you 
can't get agreement.
  The gentleman characterizes, I think Mr. Ryan has talked to Senator 
Murray, and I will tell you that Senator Murray does not believe it was 
a very long discussion or a very substantive discussion because--and 
you talk about Mr. Ryan. I've got a quote of his I know you'll like 
that I want to get to because it makes the point I'm making. I was 
going to make it a little later.
  Paul Ryan, when asked about Senate Republicans' plan to work with 
Democrats to address the debt ceiling, said:

       It doesn't matter. We're not going to do what they want to 
     do. It doesn't really matter what they do. It doesn't matter 
     what John McCain and others do on the taxes and the rest. If 
     they want to give up taxes for the sequester, we're not going 
     to do that. So that doesn't really affect us.

  But, oh, it does affect us because, Mr. Speaker, if we can't get 
agreement, those American folks of which the majority leader just spoke 
who are looking for jobs, who want to see this economy grow, who are 
suffering because of gridlock, who have a lack of confidence because 
this Congress does not work--the most dysfunctional Congress in which I 
have served, and I've been here 33 years, the least productive Congress 
in which I've served. Mr. Speaker, that's what we need to be doing.
  Mike Lee, another Republican in the Senate talking about trying to 
get to agreement: ``If Republicans in both Houses simply refuse''--and 
this is their strategy, Mr. Speaker. ``If Republicans in both Houses 
simply refuse to vote for any continuing resolution that contains 
further funding for further enforcement of ObamaCare''--and I 
understand the gentleman is opposed to it. He was opposed to it before 
the election. Mr. Romney was opposed to it. We had an election, and you 
didn't win that argument at the national level. I say that Mr. Obama 
won that argument. But Senator Lee says he will not vote for a CR if it 
includes ``further funding for further enforcement of ObamaCare. We can 
stop it. We can stop the individual mandate from going into effect.'' 
How? By shutting down government.
  That's their strategy. We don't think that's a good strategy, Mr. 
Speaker. We think that's a bad strategy. We don't want to see that. 
We're prepared to work together to compromise. Nobody believes, just as 
the gentleman has said he's not going to agree to tax increases--I 
understand what he's saying, so we'll have to compromise on that 
somewhere along the road when we sit down. But nobody believes that 
either we on this side are going to compromise or the President's going 
to compromise after an election, after being reelected on a health care 
program that is benefiting millions and millions of people right now, 
nobody believes we're going to compromise on that. Thirty-nine times 
they've tried to repeal it in one form or another. It's failed. We've 
got to come to grips on that.
  Now, one of the House Members, Mick Mulvaney from South Carolina, 
said:

       It is completely appropriate to use the debt ceiling or the 
     CR to ask for some changes that reduce the burdens of this 
     law on Americans.

  Now, they've offered that 38, 39 times. It's not going to happen. But 
apparently their strategy is: We're prepared to shut down government 
unless they will be bludgeoned into agreeing by doing it our way; if we 
don't do it our way, apparently we're not going to do it any way.
  That's what the budget conference is about, and that's what this 
debate is about.
  Now, Pat Toomey, Senator Toomey, on the other hand, said this, Mr. 
Speaker:

       This has been the way we've been operating for a couple of 
     years now.

  This is Senator Pat Toomey, former chair of the Club for Growth, 
said:

       It's a disaster. It's a terrible way to run government.


[[Page H5075]]


  Senator Toomey and I don't always agree, but we agree very 
emphatically on that.
  Congressman Tom Cole, former chairman of the Republican Committee, 
described the latest shutdown threat, which is what the previous three 
speakers had indicated--not Pat Toomey, but the three before that. Tom 
Cole described the latest shutdown threat as:

       The political equivalent of throwing a temper tantrum.

  That's Tom Cole, chairman of the Republican Campaign Committee, Mr. 
Speaker, not me.
  We need to get past this ``you won't do this; I won't do that'' and 
figure out what we will do, I say to my friend, the majority leader, 
and we have 14 days to do it. We haven't gotten it done yet; and, 
frankly, we have nothing on the calendar for next week that shows that 
we're moving toward that end.
  I would hope very sincerely that we could come to an agreement. And 
we're not going to come to an agreement on something that was so hard 
fought for the last 5 years, and we know that. We know you're probably 
not going to raise taxes, I tell my friend, the majority leader, Mr. 
Speaker. But the fact of the matter is that we need to come to an 
agreement. Americans expect us to come to an agreement.
  With so few legislative days remaining before the fiscal year ends 
and the fact that we must address it in mind, I hope the gentleman can 
give us some clarity as to what Members can expect on the floor in 
September for the 9 days we're here in September since we're so far off 
course from regular order on the budget and the appropriations 
schedule.
  Can Members expect to see a CR? And if so, does the gentleman have 
any idea what the CR will look like, what it will encompass, and what 
we can expect?
  I want to say to my friend that we Democrats are prepared to 
cooperate in that effort. We're not going to--and the gentleman clearly 
knows that we're not going to--repeal the health care act. The 
election, we think, decided it. As a matter of, Speaker Boehner said 
that it decided it after the election. He said, well, the health care 
law has been confirmed. But I want to make it clear that we are willing 
to do some things.
  We are not willing, however, to see the sequester cripple policies 
that this Congress has adopted. We're not willing to defund the 
Affordable Care Act. We're not willing to sacrifice our economic 
recovery to push the cost of deficit reduction onto those who can least 
afford it. We are not willing to shift more of the tax burden onto the 
backs of the middle class. We're not willing to target Medicare or 
Medicaid and education, or the deep cuts that were in the Labor, Health 
bill which has now been pulled. Apparently, we're not going to consider 
the Labor, Health bill. It's not on the schedule. It was supposed to be 
marked up today. It was pulled.
  So I say to the gentleman, Mr. Speaker, that he and his colleagues 
should be willing to compromise on the few legislative days we have 
remaining; and if he is, he will have a willing partner in me and in 
Democrats because we believe we need to come to an agreement.
  Now, lastly, let me speak on the debt ceiling. The majority leader, 
Mr. Speaker, has made it very clear he thinks not resolving the debt 
ceiling would be a bad policy for our country. In fact, I believe it 
would be disastrous for our country, for the economy, for every 
American, and for people around the world. We all know what happened 
last time; we were downgraded. It's the majority party's responsibility 
in each House to make sure that America's creditworthiness is not put 
at risk, that we pay our bills.
  I'm hopeful, and I want to tell me friend that I'm prepared to work 
in tandem with the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, to pass a debt limit 
extension, and we will do so in an equal way so that whatever political 
consequences there are, we will take them together to do what the 
majority leader, Mr. Speaker, and the Speaker, and Mr. McConnell, the 
leader in the Senate, have said is the responsible thing to do. We're 
prepared to take half of that responsibility with them. We would hope 
that they would join us in that effort.
  Senator McCain has said that some of my Republican colleagues are 
already saying we won't raise the debt limit again unless there is 
repeal of ObamaCare. Senator McCain said, ``I'd love to repeal 
ObamaCare.'' He agrees with the majority leader. He goes on to say, 
``But I promised you, that's not going to happen.'' That's on the debt 
limit.
  The President has made it very clear it's not going to happen. We've 
made it very clear it's not going to happen.
  Going on with Senator McCain's quote:

       So some would like to set up another one of these shut down 
     the government threats, and most Americans are really tired 
     of those kinds of shenanigans here in Washington.

  That's Senator McCain.
  I've quoted Senator Toomey, Senator McCain, who both believe we need 
to come to agreement. I have also, unfortunately, quoted Congressman 
Ryan, who says he doesn't care what Senator McCain thinks; who, of 
course, was a candidate for President on the Republican ticket just a 
few years ago.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to ask the majority leader whether he expects we 
will take an up-or-down vote on a clean debt limit extension when we 
return in September.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. CANTOR. I would say to the gentleman, the answer to that last 
question is no.
  But I would say to the gentleman, the discussion the gentleman just 
had was so full of various and sundry issues, I don't know really where 
to begin, other than to say what I think is lost in the gentleman's 
comments is the focus on the hardworking families and businesses of 
middle class America. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that the gentleman 
is full of ``that's not going to happen'' because Washington says 
that's not going to happen for political reasons.
  And what we ought to be focused on is how we can act to solve the 
anxiety that seems to continue to grow on the part of the American 
public when they wonder about their job, they worry about their tuition 
costs, they worry about their children's education, they worry every 
night when they go to bed.
  The gentleman is so sure that we can and can't do things for 
political reasons, the President is out giving campaign speeches, some 
of which we have heard dozens of times during the campaign season, that 
what all of us should be absolutely focused on is coming together not 
for political imperative, but to solve the problems to provide the 
relief to the middle class of this country that is asking us to do 
that.
  So instead of the political demands and imperatives that the 
gentleman's list of issues was about, let's focus on the people that 
sent us here. Let's make sure that this body of any in Washington can 
begin to work for the people rather than the other way around.
  Mr. HOYER. I have heard that answer, I think, more than the President 
has given the speeches that Mr. Cantor refers to.
  This party has always been, is now, and will be focused on the 
working people to which the majority leader refers.

                              {time}  1215

  The President asked us to pass a jobs bill. No jobs bill has been 
brought to this floor. I know that there are some bills that the 
Republican Party leader wants to say, Mr. Speaker, are jobs bills. But 
there's been no comprehensive jobs bill. There's none scheduled for 
next week.
  But what the American people are really concerned about is their 
board of directors is not working. This isn't about Washington. This is 
about people who voted all over America. And the leader and his party 
made their point, and we had an election, not here in Washington, all 
over America. And America voted. And it hasn't made any difference on 
this floor.
  Politics as usual. Confrontation as usual. Refusal to compromise as 
usual. Talk about regular order, but not going to conference, not going 
to conference on a budget, not going to conference on a farm bill, not 
going to conference on a Violence Against Women Act. We finally passed 
that.
  So when the majority leader repairs to the fact that we want to focus 
on working people, he's absolutely right. We do want to focus on that. 
And the working people of America voted. They didn't all vote for my 
side. But as I told the majority leader last week, 1,400,000 of them 
more voted for our side than voted for his side.

[[Page H5076]]

  But his side's in charge. We understand that. And we know we need to 
compromise. We know we need to work together. But we haven't been doing 
so.
  And he can talk as much as he wants. That's what the American people 
believe as well, I tell my friend, the majority leader.
  I asked him about the debt limit and he said no.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I want to clarify what he said no on was that a clean debt 
limit extension was not coming to the floor.
  Mr. CANTOR. In September, yes, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the majority leader's comment. Can he tell me 
whether there might be a possibility of having a clean debt limit 
extension after September?
  Because I tell the gentleman again, I want to repeat so that he 
knows, his party knows, and America knows, we're prepared to work with 
the majority party to do, in a bipartisan way, what every leader 
believes is the responsible action to take.
  One of his predecessors, Senator Roy Blunt, in responding to whether 
we ought to risk default by not passing a debt limit, he said this: 
``No, I don't support that. I think holding the debt limit hostage''--
in other words, if you don't do the debt limit, we're not going to do 
this, that or the other, or, said another way, if you don't repeal 
ObamaCare, we're going to let the country default. Senator Blunt, 
again, one of his predecessors: ``I don't support that. I think holding 
the debt limit hostage to any specific thing is probably not the best 
negotiating place.''
  Now, I thank my friend for his comment, Mr. Speaker, and I would 
again ask him, could we expect a clean debt limit extension at some 
point in time between September 30 and November 15?
  And I yield to my friend.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I'd say to the gentleman that it is our hope 
that we can work together across the aisle to solve the problems, to 
come up with the answers as to how we are going to pay back the 
additional debt that we'll have to incur in this country.
  And I think whatever budget you look at, their side or our side, Mr. 
Speaker, in any iteration, calls for the incurrence of additional debt. 
The object should be for us to reduce the need for us to incur that 
debt so we can relieve the American people of that contingent 
liability. And our side has said we would like to do so within the next 
10 years, to bring the budget to balance.
  I hope that the gentleman will join us in that spirit, rather than 
saying we should just continue to borrow into eternity, without some 
recognition that that just can't be a sustainable solution either.
  So I would say to the gentleman, when he is off talking about the 
need to go to conference, and frankly, some of the statements he made 
about VAWA and the farm bill were inaccurate. But I do think that there 
were a lot of things that this House has done that the President nor 
the Senate seems willing to respond to.
  And as I've said before, Mr. Speaker, what we're trying to do is to 
address the needs of the working people, the middle class of this 
country.
  We passed the SKILLS Act. That was a bill designed to try and align 
the worker training programs at the Federal level with the employment 
opportunities out there across the different regions of the country so 
we could respond to the fact that there are hundreds of thousands of 
job openings in certain industries, simply because our workforce 
doesn't have the proper skills and training.
  The President, if he wanted to help the middle class families, 
instead of off campaigning again, giving the speeches, he could come 
and call up Harry Reid and the Senate and say, Bring that bill to the 
floor, Mr. Leader; we can do something for the American people.
  In the same vein, this House, last week, passed a bill which I 
believe--and I'm sure the gentleman shares my sentiment, that 
ultimately what we've got to do to grow our economy and secure our 
economic future is to provide for a quality education for our kids. We 
passed a landmark piece of legislation last week, without any 
bipartisan support, Mr. Speaker.
  But again, if the gentleman is so intent on wanting to help and 
wanting to do something, not because of Washington's needs, but because 
of what we've got to do for the kids across this country and their 
families, then let's help try and forge an answer on reauthorizing the 
education bill.
  We also, Mr. Speaker, passed a bill that made it easier for working 
families to spend time with their kids and hold down an hourly wage 
job. Is there any movement on that?
  The President could certainly say, Let's do that; let's provide some 
relief to the middle class.
  We also passed in the House, Mr. Speaker, several energy bills to 
help the families out there across this country who are on their 
vacations right now, choking when they see the price of gas at the 
pump.
  We have bills. The President could go ahead and approve the Keystone 
pipeline. Where else in the world could you have an environmentally 
sensitive people, other than in America? We do it cleaner and better 
than anyone. And to sit here and deny us the opportunity to take 
advantage of our indigenous resources, all it does is cost our working 
families and businesses more money.
  We also have passed bills to allow for safe and environmentally 
sensitive ways of going into our deep oceans, to go in and to tap into 
the resources that are there, things that technology has unleashed. But 
yet, neither the Senate nor the President seems interested in helping 
the middle class and the working families, because all we hear from the 
other side is what we can and can't do politically here in Washington.
  I would say to the gentleman, there are plenty of things that we 
could get done together. Let's start to focus on the people of this 
country, not the political imperatives of this institution.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that response, which I took as a 
no, which didn't indicate that we could expect to see bipartisan work 
on making sure that the government pays its bills that have already 
been incurred. No, it was a lot of rhetoric.
  And there was a lot of recitation, Mr. Speaker, about bills. All 
those bills have something in common: do it my way or no way.
  Now, we had an election, I tell the gentleman again. He knows that. 
They thought they were going to take the Senate. They didn't. The 
majority in the Senate is Democrats. And the President of the United 
States was reelected. And the House, Republican majority, was returned. 
But that didn't mean the American people didn't expect us to work 
together.
  I tell the gentleman, I'm not sure what error he thought I made. We 
did not go to conference on the Violence Against Women Act. We did not 
go to conference yet on the farm bill.
  Mr. CANTOR. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I will be glad to yield to my friend.
  Mr. CANTOR. There was no vehicle to go to conference on, Mr. Speaker. 
If the gentleman recalls, there was a blue slip on the Senate bill, Mr. 
Speaker, and so we took up the bill in the House and went ahead and 
passed the bill. So, I don't even know why that is even pertinent to 
this discussion, Mr. Speaker.
  I'd also say, the gentleman understands as well, there was a 
bipartisan farm bill that came to the floor. And if I recall, that 
bipartisanship faded away, which is what now then caused the House to 
bring up another farm bill. This time, trying to be transparent in the 
process, brought up the agricultural policy piece, which has passed the 
House without any bipartisan support, Mr. Speaker.
  Then we are also, as the gentleman knows, engaged in discussions with 
the chairman of the Agriculture Committee as to forging a consensus on 
a nutrition piece so that we can, yes, act again on that.
  So I'd say, Mr. Speaker, to the gentleman, it is not accurate that we 
don't intend to eventually go to conference and iron out the 
differences between the House and the Senate on both of those issues, 
on the ag policy, as well as the nutrition policies.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.
  I didn't talk about intentions. I talked about fact. I talked about 
fact.
  Pete Sessions, chairman of the Rules Committee, Republican, said this 
when we passed the farm bill: ``I believe that this is an honest 
attempt to

[[Page H5077]]

get us to go by passing part of the farm bill, to go to conference.''
  I asked the gentleman last week, I asked him again, there's nothing 
on here about going to conference. The gentleman's told me we're not 
going to conference until we pass something on the nutrition part. We 
want to see something on the nutrition part passed.
  Pete Sessions said, in addition to that, when talking about why they 
brought the farm bill to the floor in the condition it was, dropping 
all reference and provisions for poor people to have nutritional 
assistance, said this:

       We're attempting to then separate, bifurcate, offer today a 
     rule and the underlying legislation which hopefully will pass 
     which would go to conference and the Senate, because they've 
     passed their own farm bill, has included in its provisions 
     where they discuss the nutrition program.

  This is Pete Sessions, Republican chairman of the Rules Committee 
speaking, Mr. Speaker.

       As a result of that, that should be in their bill on a 
     conference measure. The House simply, at this point, if we 
     pass this part, could go to conference.

  So the gentleman is not accurate when he reflects there's nothing to 
go to conference on. The Senate has amended their bill into the House 
bill. We could clearly go to conference on that under the processes.

  I think the gentleman must know that. And that was the expectation 
that Pete Sessions says was the purpose of passing the farm bill.
  But let me go back to the point I was making before the gentleman 
wanted to correct me on what I think were accurate representations on 
all the pieces of legislation I mentioned. Certainly that's the case on 
the budget. My opinion, it's the case, certainly on the budget.
  I don't know what the intentions are, but the fact is we haven't gone 
to conference on the farm bill and we didn't go to conference on the 
Violence Against Women bill.
  The fact is, what those bills that he mentioned did have in common, 
Mr. Speaker, is--and he said, we've got no Democratic votes for it. 
There was no work to get Democratic votes. There was no work for 
compromise. That's, I tell my friend, why the polls reflect of working 
people such concern.
  The majority, Mr. Speaker, talked a lot about confidence, talked a 
lot about building confidence if we were going to grow the economy. I 
agree with him. We need to have individuals confident.
  And the gentleman knows, because he talks to a lot of business 
leaders, as I do, every one of them says that if they had confidence 
that we could work together and get things done, not put the debt limit 
at risk, not put the ongoing operations of government at risk, not 
continue to have fights--I talked to a major leader of one of the 
health insurers in this country and said, look, we may not like some of 
this bill, but we think it's the law, and we're going to work to try to 
make it work for all Americans.
  We're not doing that, Mr. Speaker. We're trying to repeal. We're not 
conferencing. We're not cooperating. We're not trying to come to 
compromise.
  And we can talk about working people, as is appropriate for us to do, 
and that's what the President is out doing, not here in Washington, not 
talking to all of us. He's talking to the people and saying, look, this 
is my program. This is what I want to do, and I'm not getting 
cooperation from the Congress of the United States.
  I think he's absolutely right. And he's talking to the people, not to 
us, not here in Washington, but he's criticized for doing that by the 
majority leader.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that's what he ought to be doing because the 
American people ultimately are going to have to make a decision as to 
who is looking out for their interest and who is just simply 
confronting and not listening to the people in the last election, just 
a few months ago, or right now.
  When the people are saying, board of directors, work together, stop 
obstructing, I would hope we could do that, Mr. Speaker.
  Unless the majority leader has something further he wants to say, I 
yield back the balance of my time.

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