[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George W. Bush (2007, Book II)]
[October 30, 2007]
[Pages 1393-1394]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks Following a Meeting With the House Republican Conference
October 30, 2007

    Thank you all. I just had a very constructive and important meeting 
with the leadership and the Republican Members of the United States 
House of Representatives. And I want to thank you all for coming down, 
and thank you for your leadership.
    Congress is not getting its work done. We're near the end of the 
year, and there really isn't much to show for it. The House of 
Representatives has wasted valuable time on a constant stream of 
investigations, and the Senate has wasted valuable time on an endless 
series of failed votes to pull our troops out of Iraq. And yet there's 
important work to be done on behalf of the American people.
    They have not been able to send a single annual appropriations bill 
to my desk, and that's the worst record for a Congress in 20 years. One 
of the important responsibilities of the Congress is to pass 
appropriations bills, and yet the leadership that's on the Hill now 
cannot get that job done.
    They've also passed an endless series of tax increases. You know, 
they proposed tax increases in the farm bill, the energy bill, the 
small-business bill, and of course, the SCHIP bill. They haven't seen a 
bill they could not solve without shoving a tax hike into it. In other 
words, they believe in raising taxes, and we don't.
    Spending is skyrocketing under their leadership; at least, proposed 
spending is skyrocketing under their leadership. After all, they're 
trying to spend an additional $205 billion over the next 5 years. Some 
have said, ``Well, that doesn't matter much; it's not that much money.'' 
Well, 205 billion over the next 5 years in the real world amounts to 
this: 4.7 million per hour, every hour for every day for the next 5 
years. That's a lot of money.
    And that doesn't even include spending that would actually pay for 2 
million people to move from private health insurance to an inefficient, 
lower quality, Government-run program. Despite knowing it does not have 
a chance of becoming law, the Senate will now take up the second SCHIP 
bill the House passed last week. I believe the Senate is wasting 
valuable time. This bill, remarkably, manages to spend more money over 5 
years than the first bill did.
    After going alone and going nowhere, Congress should instead work 
with the administration on a bill that puts poor children first, a bill 
that will take care of the poor children that the initial bill said we 
got to do, a bill that would stop diverting money to adults. You realize 
some major States in the United States spend more money on adults than 
they do on children? We want a bill that enrolls the more than 500,000 
poor children currently eligible for the program who are not a part of 
the program.
    We want to sit down in good faith and come up with a bill that is 
responsible, because Congress has been unable or unwilling to get its 
basic job done of passing spending bills.
    There are now reports that congressional leaders may be considering 
combining the Veterans and Department of Defense appropriations bills 
and then add a bloated labor, health, and education spending bill to 
both of them. It's hard to imagine a more cynical political strategy 
than trying to hold hostage funding for our troops in combat and our 
wounded warriors in order to extract $11 billion in additional social 
spending. I hope media reports about such a strategy are wrong; I really 
do. If they're not, if the reports of this strategy are true, I will 
veto such a three-bill pileup. Congress should pass each bill, one at a 
time, in a fiscally responsible manner that reflects agreement between 
the legislative branch and the executive branch.

[[Page 1394]]

    I again ask Congress to send me a clean veterans funding bill that 
we have already agreed to by Veterans Day, so we can keep America's 
promise to those who have defended our freedom and are recovering from 
injury. I again urge them to pass a clean defense appropriations bill 
and a war supplemental bill to fund our troops in combat.
    I know some on the Democrat side didn't agree with my decision to 
send troops in, but it seems like we ought to be able to agree that 
we're going to support our troops who are in harm's way. I know the 
Members feel that way, standing with me. I hope the leadership feels 
that way, and they ought to give me a bill that funds, among other 
things, bullets and body armor and protection against IEDs and Mine 
Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. It would be irresponsible to not 
give our troops the resources they need to get their job done because 
Congress was unable to get its job done.
    Again, I want to thank the Members here. I appreciate us working 
together for the good of the United States of America. God bless.

Note: The President spoke at 9:27 a.m. on the North Portico at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to H.R. 976 and H.R. 3963.