[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 4897-4898]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1300
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I ask to address the House for one minute for 
the purpose of inquiring about next week's schedule.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader, 
for information about the schedule for next week.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the distinguished whip for yielding.
  On Monday, the House is not in session. On Tuesday, the House will 
meet at 12:30 for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business, 
with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.
  On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for 
legislative business. On Friday, no votes are expected.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, 
including several important public health bills, H.R. 2464, the 
Wakefield Act, and H.R. 1237, the Cytology Proficiency Improvement Act. 
The final list of bills under suspension of the rules will be announced 
by the close of business tomorrow.
  In addition, we will consider H.R. 2016, the National Landscape 
Conservation System Act, and H.R. 2537, a bill to amend the Federal 
Water Pollution Control Act relating to beach monitoring.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that.
  I have a couple of questions on things that we haven't discussed. 
First of all, the supplemental budget, I know General Petraeus is in 
Washington next week, and I believe Ambassador Crocker. The President 
sent up a supplemental request in February of last year. By 
approximately June of this year we're told that the Army will run out 
of money, and that by July, their ability to use transfer authority 
will be exhausted. I wonder at what point, in conjunction with or 
following the Petraeus visits next week, does the leader think we will 
be talking about that supplemental request.
  And I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  It's our expectation that, following the testimony of General 
Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, the committees will be meeting to not 
only discuss substantive policy, but also to discuss the supplemental 
appropriation bill. It would be my expectation that that bill would be 
on the floor either the end of April or the first week in May. We are 
cognizant, as the gentleman indicated, of the June period, and so we 
want to move this significantly before that debate so that there will 
not be any lag.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that. I think that date is 
important, and we need to be sure and be aware of it as we move through 
this process, as you are.
  The spending bill, I know as this administration comes to an end, I'm 
confident that the White House has had lots of requests from the 
administration side for additional spending, which I believe they have 
held the line on. Does the gentleman have a sense of whether this bill 
will be able to be contained to the defense supplemental, or will it 
possibly get bigger than that?
  And I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Well, there are obviously needs in addition to Iraq that are being 
discussed, and I would tell my friend that those discussions are 
ongoing. A decision on what may or may not be added in addition to the 
supplemental that may be necessary for Iraq, there may be other things, 
that decision has not been made at this point in time. But I do want to 
let the gentleman know that that is under discussion.
  As the gentleman will recall, last year, when we passed the 
supplemental, there were domestic priorities that were also addressed, 
in particular, Katrina, as the gentleman will recall, and some other 
matters as well. So, that's under discussion.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, I do appreciate that. And I just say for my friend's 
information that we've certainly discouraged the White House, we're 
hoping, not only discouraged them from moving forward with any new 
additions, and I think they have decided not to do that and will be 
concerned about this going as quickly as possible and meeting these 
defense needs rather than being tied down.
  Another topic is housing. On the other side of the building they've 
been talking about housing this week. I know that Chairman Frank has 
some proposals on housing. I really have two questions there: One, when 
do you anticipate some housing legislation on the floor? And two would 
be, do you expect that that housing legislation will follow the PAYGO 
rules of this Congress, or will those rules be suspended for that 
housing discussion?
  And I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. As you know, we are strong proponents of the PAYGO rule 
and have adhered to that in all but one instance last year. We did not 
adhere to it, as you know, with the stimulus package. There was 
concern, and obviously we didn't want to stimulate and depress at the 
same point in time, so that was under discussion. But I will tell you 
on the housing bill itself, Mr. Frank has been working on that with his 
committee, Maxine Waters and others, and with Mr. Bachus and others on 
the committee. And we would certainly hope to move a housing bill in 
the near term, certainly no later than the latter part of this month or 
the very first days of the next month, so that we can pass a bill that 
would give relief to those who have either been foreclosed upon or are 
on the brink of foreclosure. We believe that it is essential for us to 
try to address what is a

[[Page 4898]]

national problem and a very serious one. And so, that will also go into 
the consideration, I think, of how much money is needed, how that will 
be paid for.
  Mr. BLUNT. I think in that time frame there is a chance there will be 
some administrative actions taken as well, and that may be an important 
part of that debate.
  I do know that this week Mr. Bernanke testified before the Joint 
Economic Committee, and part of his testimony was that he thought that 
this would be the wrong time for any tax increases. And I would hope we 
could maintain some openness on that PAYGO discussion as it relates to 
this housing concern that people are facing.
  I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. Thank you very much for yielding.
  I will say that over the last 7 years, the President has told us 
things are pretty good. There was never a right time for revenues to be 
increased. Even in the times when the President was telling us the 
economy was robust, we were growing, we still weren't paying our bills.
  We feel very strongly on this side of the aisle, and Mr. Bernanke, in 
a telephone conversation with me, said one of the things we didn't want 
to do, when you and I and Mr. Boehner and Ms. Pelosi were talking about 
the stimulus package, one thing we did not want to do is exacerbate the 
long-term debt that confronts us. Mr. Bernanke is very concerned about 
that. But certainly in the context of wanting to move quickly in an 
emergency way where we have an economy now that Mr. Bernanke, although 
he didn't say it was a recession, he certainly gave the implication 
that we were on the brink of that, we're very concerned about the 
economic policies, very frankly, that we think have led to that.
  But I will say that we have two concerns: Number one, paying for what 
we buy, not exacerbating the deficit. But clearly we're concerned about 
getting relief to people that need it in the short term. But my 
discussions with Mr. Bernanke were, yes, tax increases in the short 
term he thought were not helpful, but he wanted to make it very clear 
that he thought making the debt worse over the long term, whether it's 
for international expenses or domestic expenses, was not helpful to the 
economy in the long term.
  I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, I wouldn't quarrel with the gentleman about not 
having a good time for tax increases since '01 and '03, but revenue 
actually has increased during that period of time. I think in '05, '06 
and '07 we may have set records of increased revenues, percentage over 
last year. So, you used the term revenue, and I think you meant taxes, 
because we did see some revenue increases during that time, and they 
were significant. I think over 14 percent in FY05, and double digits in 
the next 2 years.
  I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I won't debate that now, but I would be interested in 
discussing it at some point in time because, as you know, in those 
years revenues fell short of the administration's projections in the 
previous years. So that, although revenues did increase, you're 
absolutely correct, as revenues have every year over the last 50 except 
for 2, they increased less than the administration had projected.
  Mr. BLUNT. Well, while we don't want to enter into this debate too 
fully, on the projections, even though we still had deficits in those 
years, which I regret for a number of reasons, those deficits were 
always less at the end of the year than we had thought they were going 
to be at the beginning of the year because revenues exceeded 
projections. That's why the deficit was less.
  The third topic, I think my last topic today, is, we're at a point in 
the congressional calendar where it's at least possible that, under the 
TPA, the Trade Promotion Authority rules, the President will send the 
Colombia Trade Agreement up because of the number of days left that 
under TPA would require a vote during the calendar we've put in place. 
And I wonder if the gentleman has a sense of whether the Colombia Trade 
Agreement process will go through the normal Trade Promotion Authority 
process, or if that process could possibly be shut off.
  And I would yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for the question.
  We all agree this is an important agreement, but as you know, there 
are still major long-standing issues to be resolved, violence being one 
of them, labor rights being another, trade adjustment assistance, which 
the gentleman referred to, as another. If the White House does choose 
to send up the agreement, we will discuss the full range of options 
available to us under the TPA and the House rules.
  Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman, and I yield back.

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