[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 114 (Friday, August 2, 2013)]
[House]
[Pages H5383-H5386]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              JULY WRAP-UP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Meadows). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of January 3, 2013, the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer) is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, as the Speaker knows, I am also the minority 
whip. As the minority whip, at the close of the week we normally have a 
colloquy between the majority leader and myself. That colloquy is to 
discuss the schedule for the week to come; it is to discuss the 
priorities that each side believes ought to be considered by this 
House. We do not have that colloquy when the week to come does not have 
a session.
  We have now adjourned, or will soon adjourn, for a period of 5 weeks 
when we will not be in session. We have adjourned without doing the 
people's

[[Page H5384]]

business. We have adjourned without resolving some of the most vexing 
challenges that confront this Congress and confront our country. We 
have adjourned without addressing some of the priorities that the 
Senate has acted upon and sent to this House, or if they haven't sent 
them to this House have passed them and are ready to respond to our 
initiatives. Mr. Speaker, that's unfortunate.
  Mr. Speaker, I will be talking about in this hour--and I probably 
won't take the whole hour--but I will be talking about some of the 
things that we have not done that we ought to be doing, some of the 
things that we ought to be doing rather than taking a 5-week break.
  But let me quickly add: I'm one of the Democratic leaders. I do not 
criticize the Republicans for this 5-week break, because we normally 
take a break in August so that Members and their families can take some 
time, so that Members can be home to talk to their constituents, seek 
their advice, seek their counsel, explain what is happening here in 
Washington to, at this point in time, a rightfully angry group of 
Americans who see their board of directors that we call the Congress of 
the United States not working very well, not attendant to the 
significant issues that confront us.
  The House passed a budget. It passed a budget about 125 days ago. The 
Senate passed a budget about 123 days ago. The way the process is 
supposed to work is the way it works in your families, Mr. Speaker, and 
in my family. When we have a dispute, we sit down, we talk about it and 
we try to come to a resolution. Some call that resolution a 
``compromise,'' a recognition that you have a perspective, I have a 
perspective; if we are going to move forward, we need to harmonize 
those perspectives. That is what democracy is all about--bringing 
together disparate views from various geographic locations with various 
interests at heart and try to resolve those differences and move our 
country forward.
  Notwithstanding that, Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the fact that the 
Speaker says that--and said during the campaign--he wanted to make sure 
that: a) the House worked its will; b) that we pursued regular order; 
and c) that he wanted the Senate to pass a budget, they did so. But the 
House has refused to go to conference. That's unfortunate, but it is 
not unique in this House.
  The Senate also passed an immigration bill. That immigration bill 
tries to deal with one of the most vexing challenges that confronts our 
country. It is an issue that has a large amount of agreement outside 
this institution. The United States Chamber of Commerce, representing 
much of business in America, and the AFL-CIO, representing organized 
labor, have agreed that this immigration bill should be supported. The 
agriculture community from California to Florida to Maine to Arizona 
have essentially agreed this is a bill which will move us forward. 
Essentially, there is a broad-based agreement that the Senate bill is 
something that will create jobs, grow our economy, and make our country 
more stable.

                              {time}  1400

  There is a general agreement--I would say an almost unanimous 
agreement--that we need to keep our borders secure, that people whom we 
do not authorize should not be allowed to come into the country. We all 
agree on that. So we are working to make sure that our borders are even 
more secure. There is unanimity on that issue. In fact, the Senate 
appropriated a large number of dollars to accomplish that objective. We 
have not taken up an immigration bill in this House; and, certainly, 
because we have not, we haven't gone to conference.
  Then, Mr. Speaker, we took up a farm bill on the floor of this House, 
significantly, after the Senate had passed a bipartisan bill dealing 
with agriculture and dealing with assistance to those in America--the 
richest country on the face of the Earth--who are going hungry, a large 
number of whom are children who live in America. The Committee on 
Agriculture passed out a bipartisan bill in the last Congress, and it 
was never brought to the floor by my Republican friends. This year, the 
committee also passed out a bipartisan bill that was brought to this 
floor. It could have and should have been passed with a bipartisan 
vote, not because I agreed with all of it, but because it was 
appropriate to have a bill to go to conference with on this important 
subject. Our Republican friends added three amendments which we thought 
were clearly harmful to those in need in America.
  As a result, we didn't vote for it, but that's not why it failed, Mr. 
Speaker. It failed because 62 Republicans voted against the bill 
reported out with every Republican voting in committee for it; but as 
Mr. Lucas, the chairman of the committee observed, it apparently wasn't 
good enough for those 62 Republicans. Compromise seems very difficult 
for some people in this House, but I again remind us all it is 
absolutely essential.
  We then passed a farm bill which said, unlike the last half a 
century, we would drop food assistance to the needy in America. Mr. 
Speaker, my faith tells me to try to feed the hungry, house the 
homeless, clothe the naked, attend the least of these. The bill that we 
passed for the first time in a half a century left out the neediest in 
America.
  In the course of passing that bill, the chairman of the Rules 
Committee, Mr. Speaker, said we are passing this bill so that we can go 
to conference with the clear implication at that point in time--because 
the Senate bill does take care of the neediest who are hungry, adults 
and children, along with the needs of our farmers, who produce our food 
and fiber on which all of us rely--that, with this bill, we can go to 
conference. Mr. Speaker, you and I both know we haven't gone to 
conference. So we leave here with much of the business of America 
undone, unattended, without an effort to reach compromise.
  Mr. Speaker, additionally, as you know, on September 30, the 
authorization for the operations of government and the funding thereof 
will come to an end, so it will be necessary for us to come to an 
agreement. I hope--but I know of none--that there are being plans made 
to utilize these next 5 weeks to try to reach a compromise, an 
agreement, a way forward to ensure the funding of our government and 
the operations so critical to so many millions not only here but around 
the world.
  Mr. Speaker, we began the July work period with a measure of 
optimism. With 4 full weeks of session in July and the first few days 
of August, we have not met that optimism. There was much reason to hope 
that this House could make serious headway on appropriations bills and 
reach a compromise on student loans. Now, we passed that student loan 
compromise this Wednesday. That was a good thing to do, and it was 
along the lines that the President proposed some months ago. My 
Republican colleagues would rightfully say it was along the lines that 
they had proposed and passed this House, and of course our Senate 
colleagues will say it is the compromise that the Senate formed and 
that we passed.
  But in this time, the majority's strategy for moving appropriations 
bills through this House has utterly and completely failed. The Ryan 
budget--or the ``Ryan retreat,'' as I call it--has failed. With 4 full, 
consecutive weeks in which to get things done, we have not enacted a 
single appropriations bill that was consistent with either the Budget 
Control Act of 2011 or this year's Ryan budget.
  In fact, we haven't enacted a single appropriations bill--period. 
Now, we've passed bills through this House, but we haven't been able to 
get to compromise, and that's not unusual. We've found the 
appropriations process difficult over the past few years, but it is 
still an indication of failure to attempt to reach compromise that we 
have not gone to a budget conference to determine what numbers we will 
use, because, if you can't agree on a number or numbers, it is 
impossible to agree on legislation.
  Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I sadly note that my friends in the majority 
have not even had the courage or, in my opinion, the intellectual 
honesty to go to conference on the budget to resolve these differences. 
Why? Because I believe that Mr. Ryan believes that any compromise he 
would make would not be supported by his party because they don't want 
to compromise, which is anathema to many of our Republican colleagues. 
``Regular order,'' it seems, means simply ``their order.''

[[Page H5385]]

  Now, as I've said, we are leaving for the August recess with just 9 
legislative days remaining until the end of the fiscal year--9 days. 
That's what is scheduled for legislative business between now and 
September 30--9 days. As I said, not a single appropriations bill has 
been sent to the President's desk. A bill that we were considering this 
week, which was supposed to be the principal item of business this 
week, was taken from the floor because it did not have the support of 
the majority party. This is not a recipe for responsible governance by 
the majority. It is a recipe for another manufactured crisis and threat 
of a government shutdown.
  Mr. Speaker, our economy, our businesses, and our middle class 
families cannot and ought not endure further uncertainty as a result of 
this Congress' failure to do its job. The most egregious manifestation 
of the majority's failure to govern has been the irrational sequester 
policy that they not only refused to prevent but have now fully 
embraced. Why do I say they've fully embraced it? Because it gets to 
their number included in the Ryan budget without their having to make 
one single choice of cutting a single item. It simply says, This is the 
number. Meet it--no prioritization, no choice, no decision. The Ryan 
budget passed this House in March without a single Democratic vote--an 
endorsement, in theory, of this Republican Congress of cuts even deeper 
than the sequester imposes.

  Now, let me say parenthetically that a lot of my Republican 
colleagues will stand at that podium or at one of these podiums and 
say, This is the President's sequester. Mr. Speaker, America needs to 
know that is not true, and I believe too many who make that statement 
know it not to be true. We passed legislation in this House in the 
middle of July of 2011 which said we're going to reach certain numbers, 
and if we don't, we're going to have a sequester. Mr. Speaker, you may 
recall that that was the Republican Cut, Cap, and Balance bill, whose 
policy was to have a sequester if the numbers set forth were not 
reached. That was before it was included in the bill which was a 
compromise to reach resolution so that America did not default on its 
bills.
  I was not for the sequester. The President was not for the sequester, 
and we Democrats voted overwhelmingly--almost unanimously, perhaps 
unanimously--against that Cut, Cap, and Balance bill and its sequester. 
Why? Because cutting across the board the highest priority and the 
lowest priority by exactly the same percentage is an irrational policy. 
No family in America would do it.
  Mr. Speaker, the example I use is that somebody in the family loses 
his job. The family income goes down. They have a budget. They have a 
budget for food, and they have a budget for movies. The sequester says 
take 10 percent from food and 10 percent from movies. There is no 
rational family in America that would do that. They would say, This 
month or this 6 months or this year, we're not going to the movies, but 
we're going to keep food on the table. That's the rational judgment 
that we would make, but that's not what the sequester says.
  Having said that, we have offered amendments seven times in the last 
6 months to set aside the sequester while, at the same time, reducing 
the deficit by the same amount. Seven times we were refused by the 
majority party the opportunity to even offer that amendment to have, as 
the Speaker says he wants, the House work its will. If they didn't 
agree with our amendment, they could have voted against it; but they 
didn't want to deal with our amendment because they like the sequester, 
because the sequester gets them to their number without their having to 
make a decision on cutting a single thing.
  As I predicted then, when theory turns to practice in the Ryan 
budget, even Republicans, themselves, cannot live with the policies. 
Their own chairman of the Appropriations Committee characterized just 
the other day--this was Chairman Rogers of Kentucky, a conservative 
Republican, my friend with whom I've worked for many, many years as a 
member of the Appropriations Committee--he characterized the cuts 
included in the Ryan budget as ``unrealistic and ill-conceived.''

                              {time}  1415

  That's the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee saying 
of the Republican budget, known as the Ryan budget, ``unrealistic and 
ill-conceived.'' Their policy of sequester remains, Mr. Speaker, an 
albatross around the neck of the American people and of our economy.
  If there were not a single Democrat in this House or in the Senate, 
not a single Democrat, Mr. Speaker, it is my belief that the Ryan 
budget could not pass this Congress.
  The Republican pro-sequester spending-cuts-only approach simply does 
not work, and this week's Transportation-HUD appropriation debacle 
proves it. I want to quote again the chairman of the committee:

       With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the 
     implementation of the very budget it adopted just 3 months 
     ago.

  Let me make it clear. No Democrat had the opportunity to vote on 
this; no Democrat voted against this. We weren't for it--make no 
mistake--but the decision was made completely on the majority side of 
the aisle that they didn't have the votes for their bill. They could 
not implement the very budget that was adopted just 3 months ago.
  ``Thus, Mr. Speaker, I believe the House has made its choice,'' said 
Chairman Rogers. ``Sequestration and its unrealistic and ill-conceived 
discretionary cuts must be brought to an end,'' so said Hal Rogers, 
Republican, conservative from Kentucky, chairman of the Appropriations 
Committee. ``Sequestration must be brought to an end.''
  As I've said, Mr. Speaker, those are the words of Hal Rogers. Not my 
words, his words. I know that Chairman Rogers is not the only Member of 
his party who is fed up with the Tea Party faction and their extreme 
agenda. As we prepare to go home to our districts over the month of 
August and hear their concerns about jobs and our economy and the pain 
of sequester's senseless cuts, I have spoken to hundreds of employees 
who work in our defense establishment who are lamenting the fact that 
not only are they being forced to take off 1 day a week for no pay and 
they can't even volunteer to work, who are lamenting the fact that 
those at the point of the spear in Afghanistan and other troubled parts 
of the word, they cannot take off Friday. They need the support that we 
give them from here in this country and, indeed, around the world in 
the civilian workforce, in DOD, the Department of Defense, all the 
time, not just 4 days a week.
  As we prepare to go home to our districts over the month of August, 
as I said, and hear their concerns and the pain of the sequester's 
senseless cuts, I hope that we can turn the page of the July work 
period and return in a different spirit. See, September need not be 
July's second act.
  In the short time we have left, just 9 legislative days before the 
fiscal year ends, I would urge the Speaker to take a different path. 
Instead of taking the familiar road of partisanship, posturing and 
spin, let us embrace the path of compromise and shared accomplishment, 
one we in this Congress might call, as the poet Robert Frost said, the 
road less traveled by. It's a wonderful poem by one of America's 
greatest poets. He said:

     I shall be telling this with a sigh
     Somewhere ages and ages hence:
     Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less 
           traveled by,
     And that has made all the difference.

  We have difficult and pressing challenges to address in a short time: 
passing a budget; replacing the sequester with a balanced alternative; 
and averting a default on our debt, a default which would be 
catastrophic for America, for its people, for its economy, and would 
have ramifications throughout the world.
  We can begin, Mr. Speaker, by going to conference on the budget and 
allowing both sides to sit down and start working on an agreement. That 
seems to be, Mr. Speaker, the road less traveled by; a road forward; a 
road that leads to positive, constructive, supportable results, not 
backward; a road to constructive compromise, not destructive 
confrontation; and to results that benefit our people and our economy. 
Mr. Speaker, such a road would surely make all the difference for this 
Congress and for this country.

[[Page H5386]]

  Mr. Speaker, we need to work together. Newt Gingrich, a former 
Speaker with whom I served, reached a compromise with President 
Clinton. There were a lot of people on his side of the aisle that 
didn't want to see an agreement between President Clinton and Speaker 
Gingrich. It was on the funding of government, the basic responsibility 
this Congress has, or any board of directors of any enterprise has.
  Mr. Gingrich stood at that podium, Mr. Speaker, and talked to what he 
referred to as his perfectionist caucus, people who wanted it their way 
and were not prepared to compromise from a road other than their way. 
He said, Mr. Speaker, to that perfectionist caucus, Look, I know this 
is not exactly what you want, but the American people have elected a 
President of another party, Bill Clinton, and they've elected a Senate 
with a lot of Democrats in there who don't agree with us, and, yes, 
some Republicans who don't agree with us. They also elected a lot of 
Democrats to the House of Representatives. He said, Obviously, a 
majority of the Members of the House were Republicans. But if the 
country was going to move forward, if there was going to be a positive 
resolution to the conflict that existed between differing points of 
view, that there would need to be compromise. He admonished that 
perfectionist caucus to understand that this was a democracy, not a 
dictatorship, and that agreement and compromise was the essence of what 
democracy meant.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that over the 5 weeks that are to come that 
Members will reflect, communicate with our citizens, and come to an 
understanding of the necessity to act not just our way or my way, not 
just to reflect what I want, but to reflect what we as a country 
working together can accomplish. Mr. Speaker, if we do that, America 
will continue to be the greatest country on the face of the Earth, 
providing opportunity for our children and our families, our workers 
and our seniors, and continuing to be that shining city on a hill of 
which Ronald Reagan spoke so glowingly
  Mr. Speaker, let us hope in these 5 weeks we learn how to work 
together. That's what our people want. As importantly, that is what our 
people need.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________