[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 200 (Thursday, December 7, 2017)]
[House]
[Pages H9715-H9717]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1045
                   CONTINUING RESOLUTION AND TAX BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, we should not shut down the government of the 
United States. Democrats do not want government to shut down. It is, 
however, not in our hands. It takes a majority to pass any bill in this 
House: 218 votes. Our Republican colleagues have over 240 votes. We 
have 193. So it is not in our hands, Mr. Speaker.
  The Republican Party has been given the responsibility and the duty 
to enact legislation to ensure the proper functioning of government. As 
the governing party, they can pass whatever they want to pass on this 
floor. Indeed, as the governing party, they have a responsibility to 
use their votes to keep the government running. They control the House, 
they control the Senate, and they control the White House. All the 
levers of power of legislating are in their hands.
  But, we are here, Mr. Speaker, on the verge of a shutdown because of 
a familiar pattern where Republicans cannot

[[Page H9716]]

unite as a party. They cannot agree among themselves on spending 
priorities. This has happened again and again and again. In fact, each 
time Congress has successfully enacted a funding bill since the 
majority took the majority in 2011, they had to have Democratic votes 
to pass that legislation every single time.
  When we passed the continuing resolution in September, just about 3 
months ago, we did so because Republican leaders asked for more time to 
work on the priorities that confront this country and, responsibly, 
keeping government working. They had 3 months to do so, yet here we are 
with 1 day remaining and nothing to show for it.
  Instead, they have spent the past 3 months--on priorities that I will 
outline in just a minute--working on a tax bill that is reckless, 
deeply unpopular, and harmful to the lives and livelihoods of millions 
of Americans and the economic well-being of our country that I call a 
death tax because it will explode the debt of the United States; a bill 
that would raise taxes on 78 million middle class households and kick 
13 million Americans off of their health insurance coverage; a bill 
that would increase, as I have said, the deficit by $1.5 trillion--
indeed, much more than that, because we have to pay interest on the 
money that we are going to borrow to do the tax cut, while we fail to 
pay our bills--a bill that would trigger an automatic cut of Medicare 
by $25 billion next year; a bill premised on a falsehood that tax cuts 
magically pay for themselves.
  That is what the past 3 months have been wasted on, Mr. Speaker.
  Not a single appropriations bill has been enacted by this Congress, 
not a single one. There are 12. They control the House, they control 
the Senate, and they control the Presidency.
  Now our Republican colleagues, Mr. Speaker, are asking for 2 more 
weeks. Two more weeks, they say. Republicans are asking us for 2 more 
weeks because they claim they haven't had time to write a funding bill 
they can pass.
  Ninety days. Every Democrat voted for what I call the ``no drama'' CR 
in September. Ninety Republicans voted ``no'' on an agreement we had to 
use the next 90 days to address the priorities of America. But 90 
Republicans voted ``no.''
  They have had time to write and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite again 
a tax bill that advantages the wealthiest in America at the expense of 
the majority of Americans. That, Mr. Speaker, is how they have spent 
their time these past 3 months.
  Write a funding bill to avert a shutdown?
  No.
  Reach an agreement that is responsible to fund the priorities of 
America?
  No.
  Write a tax bill that kicks millions off of their health coverage and 
raises taxes on millions more. That is what they have done for 90 days. 
That is what they chose to do.
  Two more weeks?
  If they want 2 more weeks, they have 240 votes to give themselves 
more time. But I am certainly not going to vote to give them 2 more 
weeks simply to work on the tax bill, which they have pledged to pass 
by Christmas.
  However, if they passed it a year from now, it would have the same 
impact on America's taxes. The critical they have ignored and delayed. 
The political has been their sole focus.
  I say to my Republican friends, Mr. Speaker: You won control of the 
government. Govern, govern. Be responsible. Focus on that which is 
critically important to the American people. Don't say you haven't had 
time to do the most important job you had. You had time. We voted--
every one of us--to give you 90 days, to work either in a partisan 
sense, as you have done so much of the year; or in a bipartisan sense, 
which was much more positive and would have been much more productive.
  There is a to-do list, Mr. Speaker, of critical legislative items 
that this House has to complete before the end of the year. It is a 
long and compelling list. Six of them have hard deadlines and must be 
done before we leave for the end of the year. For 90 days we didn't do 
them.
  None of the six is a surprise either. Neither are any of the others 
that the American people expect us to do by the end of the year as 
well.
  The majority has had months to work on bringing legislation to the 
floor on each one of them--months--yet here we are, in December, pushed 
up against the wall of a funding deadline.
  And Republicans want 2 more weeks so they can focus on passing their 
tax bill before Christmas?
  Not the priorities of America, but a tax bill, a deeply unpopular, 
appropriately so, tax bill.
  Mr. Speaker, let me list what we need to do, what we ought to do, and 
what we should have done over the last 90 days. Let me just share with 
the American people who sent us here what the Republican majority has 
not gotten done in all of the months they have had complete control of 
the government:

  Keep the government open and functioning by passing funding bills and 
sending them to the President for signature;
  Reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program so that millions 
of our children will not lose healthcare insurance;
  Provide funding for VA Choice to help care for our veterans, which 
must be done;
  Reauthorize the flood insurance program, which is so critical to so 
many millions of Americans;
  Extend expiring health programs, such as community health centers, on 
which so many others rely;
  Reauthorize portions of the Intelligence Act to protect America's 
security, which will end before the end of the year.
  Ninety days we have had to consider all of those items.
  The American people also expect us to:
  Provide the necessary resources to address the opioid addiction 
crisis, which they had 90 days to do that;
  Reach an agreement on spending levels for critical priorities of the 
American people. We call it dealing with sequester, which is somewhat 
jargon, but we haven't done that;
  Pass funding to keep government effectively serving our people. 
Ninety days to do that, and here we are;
  Pass the Dream Act to provide certainty for those young people who 
were brought here as children and have grown up as Americans;
  Take action to stabilize our health insurance markets. We haven't 
done that. We had 90 days;
  Extend the expired Perkins Loan Program so college students, with the 
most need, can complete their degrees. We haven't done that in the last 
90 days;
  Reauthorize fire grants so that our domestic defenders and our first 
responders can have the resources they need for training, for 
personnel, and for equipment to keep our communities safe. We had 90 
days to do that;
  Prevent nearly 1 million people from losing access to Medicaid in 
Puerto Rico;
  And I will end with: making sure that the people of Texas, the people 
of Florida, the people of Puerto Rico, and the people of the Virgin 
Islands have resources to rebuild and restore their communities 
devastated by Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.
  All of this we need to do by December 31.
  What do we focus on?
  A tax bill.
  When will that tax bill take effect for taxes in 2018? When will you 
pay those?
  By April 15, 2019.
  Yet that is what we spend all of our time on. That is what we have 
spent all of our time on, not the priorities that I have just read, but 
a tax bill that will hurt America, hurt its financial status, hurt its 
middle-income workers, and, most of all, hurt the children who will pay 
back the money we will borrow to give the wealthiest in America a tax 
cut, those people making over $900,000 a year. That crowd will get 62 
percent of the resources, yet the Speaker says that we need to help 
struggling Americans.
  I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, there is not a person at any one of my 
town meetings who came up to me and was worried about the people making 
$900,000 or more--not one. Maybe it has happened to you, Mr. Speaker, 
but it hasn't happened to me.
  Why are we at this point?
  Because we have a governing party that refuses to govern; because we 
have

[[Page H9717]]

a majority that has failed to do the business of the American people, 
even for something as fundamental as providing for the operations of 
government.
  Mr. Speaker, we Democrats welcome the opportunity to sit down with 
our Republican colleagues and reach a compromise agreement to meet our 
responsibilities and address many of the pressing issues I have 
outlined earlier in this address.
  My time is about up. Had we utilized the 90 days that we all voted--
we on our side of the aisle, the Democrats voted--with our Republican 
friends, although 90 Republicans voted ``no,'' but we all voted ``yes'' 
to take 90 days to meet our responsibilities to the American people. It 
hasn't been done. We have no confidence that giving 2 more weeks will 
make it happen.
  Let's get to work right now. Not on the tax bill. That could be 
passed at some point in time. I am against it. I will vote against it. 
I hope it fails. It is a bad bill. But let's address these priorities. 
That is not what the intent of these 2 weeks are. It is to give 2 weeks 
so we can pass a bad tax bill that will hurt America, will hurt our 
children, and will hurt the middle class.

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