[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 23407]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  WHAT EXCUSE WILL THEY USE THIS YEAR?

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. STENY H. HOYER

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                      Thursday, September 25, 2003

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the Members on our side of the aisle can 
hardly wait to hear what half-baked excuse our Republican colleagues 
will use this year for failing to complete our appropriations work on 
time.
  Remember last fall's favorite punching bag? Tom Daschle and Senate 
Democrats.
  As if the other body had anything to do with the Republican 
majority's refusal to even bring up eight of the 13 annual spending 
bills on this floor for a vote.
  We all know last year's little secret: The House GOP--so famously 
derided as the ``perfectionist caucus'' by Former Speaker Newt 
Gingrich--didn't have the votes on its side of the aisle to pass those 
bills.
  So, you pointed the finger of blame at the Senate.
  When we considered the first continuing resolution last year, the 
majority leader (Mr. DeLay) said:
  ``The Democrat House leadership embraced the decision by the other 
body [the Senate] to proceed with no governing fiscal oversight called 
a budget. For any theoretical elective body, the decision to proceed 
forward without a governing budget would be foolhardy and grossly 
irresponsible.''
  The chairman of the Transportation-Treasury Appropriations 
Subcommittee, Mr. Istook, passed the buck with even more gusto:
  ``The law requires both houses to enact a budget. This body has done 
so. The other body still has not done it. No wonder we have gridlock 
and deadlock.''
  But few could match the bluntness of my friend from Georgia (Mr. 
Kingston):
  ``There is a sinkhole on the Capitol, not over here, but over there 
[the Senate],'' said Mr. Kingston.
  ``Now, this sinkhole ate up the budget this year. So here we are 
forced to pass a continuing resolution because we cannot deal with some 
group that does not have a budget.''
  Well, the last time I checked, my Republican friends, there was a 
Republican majority in this body, a Republican majority in the other 
body, and a Republican chief executive at the other end of Pennsylvania 
Avenue.
  And while this house has passed all 13 spending bills, we have only 
adopted three conference reports.
  So what is your excuse this year?
  We all know the answer to that. It's your inability to compromise 
even with members of your own party.
  And it's an affliction that is not just holding up the appropriations 
process.
  It's also preventing us from passing an energy bill, from extending 
the child tax credit to 6.5 million working American families, and 
giving our seniors a real prescription drug benefit that is not 
designed to destroy Medicare.
  The GOP has no one to blame this year for this legislative failure 
but itself.

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