[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[House]
[Pages 5455-5456]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. CANTOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform our colleagues that 
the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning hour and 12 p.m. for 
legislative business tomorrow. As the Members know, this is a change 
from the original calendar.
  Due to ongoing negotiations, Mr. Speaker, surrounding continued 
appropriations for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, I believe it is 
both appropriate and necessary for this House to be in session 
tomorrow. I expect legislative business to include, but may not be 
limited to, H.J. Res. 37, a resolution of disapproval regarding the 
FCC's recent Internet and broadband industry practices regulation 
ruling.
  Votes are possible at any time after noon tomorrow. At this point, it 
is too early to tell whether the House will need to be in session this 
weekend. In the case of lapse in appropriations, however, I fully 
expect the House to meet.
  Mr. Speaker, we will not leave town until we have fulfilled our 
obligation to cut spending, to begin getting our fiscal house in order, 
and to keep the government functioning. Therefore, Members should keep 
their schedules for this weekend as flexible as possible.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the majority leader yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the majority leader for yielding, and I share his 
view that we ought to keep the government running for not only the sake 
of our economy, but for the sake of all those that rely on the Federal 
Government. My friend has made the observation in the past that 
shutting down the government, and I believe the Speaker has made the 
same observation, was not a rational policy for us to pursue.
  I ask the gentleman, because I believe that the resolution that we 
will be considering will not either pass the Senate nor be signed by 
the President, in light of that, and in light of the fact that the 
majority leader of the Senate and the Speaker have both indicated that 
negotiations are ongoing, would the gentleman agree to a unanimous 
consent, as we have done so often in the past when the majority 
Democrats that were in control of the House and the Senate disagreed 
with President Bush, that we would have a hold-in-

[[Page 5456]]

place unanimous consent continuing resolution, not changing the status 
on either side of the negotiations, for 7 days, which would give the 
parties the opportunity to come to an agreement.
  My understanding from the leader of the Senate is that we have agreed 
to some $70 billion in cuts, which is a substantial way towards what 
you wanted and a show that we share the view that we need to have 
fiscal restraint.
  So I ask my friend, if I made a unanimous consent request that we 
continue the government authority to stay running until next Friday 
without changing the status quo so that neither party would be 
disadvantaged and that our government would, in fact, as the gentleman 
observes is his objective, be able to stay in service to the American 
people?
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, first of all, I'd respond to the gentleman 
to say that there is no indication in a definite way that the Senate 
would not take up and pass the piece of legislation that we would bring 
up today.
  As a response to the second part of his inquiry regarding our going 
along with unanimous consent, I would say to the gentleman, no. We 
don't accept the status quo.
  Mr. Speaker, America is broke. That is why we are trying to address 
our fiscal crisis and to get the debt under control.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. CANTOR. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. I want to inform the gentleman that the White House has 
just issued an intent to veto the resolution that you are offering. I 
tell my friend that if, in fact, the gentleman wants to keep the 
government running while negotiations proceed, we have already agreed 
to substantial billions of dollars in reductions in spending for 2011. 
We did so, and we've agreed on that. As a matter of fact, as the 
gentleman knows, I have voted for both of the previous resolutions. I 
believed both of those could pass; and, in fact, I was correct. They 
did pass.
  I tell my friend this resolution, in my view, will not pass. However, 
it is my understanding that both the Speaker and Mr. Reid and the 
President are continuing to have discussions to try to overcome this 
impasse. That is the legislative process. We never shut down the 
government when we had the majority and President Bush was in power. 
And I tell my friend the reason we did not shut it down is because we 
agreed with the premise you have stated and the premise the Speaker has 
stated that shutting down the government was not a process that was 
useful for our economy, for jobs, for our people or for the services 
that are expected of us. What is useful is for us to rationally provide 
a context in which negotiations, which quite obviously have not yet 
been completed, are completed.
  Now, you have heard me talk about the ``perfectionist caucus.'' You 
can't get it all your way, and we can't get it all our way; but, in 
fact, the American public overwhelmingly elected President Obama for a 
4-year term. He is in office.

                              {time}  1200

  Mr. Gingrich said that we were ignoring the 2010 election results. We 
observed that the 2008 election results were regularly ignored by your 
side of the aisle in the last 2 years. What I am saying to my friend, 
there is a rational way for us to proceed. And, very frankly, when we 
were in your shoes, we did so, when we couldn't reach agreement with 
President Bush.
  Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I would say let us look 
at why we are where we are to begin with.
  Mr. HOYER. I tell my friend, we have little doubt on our side of the 
aisle why we are where we are today.
  Mr. CANTOR. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I would say, we are 
trying to do the business of the American people. We do not want to 
shut the government down. We don't accept the status quo. We don't want 
to bankrupt this Nation. We believe there is a fiscal crisis demanding 
urgent action.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

                          ____________________