Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. Does the gentleman intend to meet on Sunday if we have acted on the CR tomorrow?

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his response, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentlelady for yielding. Madam Speaker, today we are considering a measure to fund government only if the Democratic Senate and Democratic President will agree to dismantle the health care reform law that will help millions of Americans access quality, affordable care. That isn't going to happen, and it is a blatant act of hostage- taking. This Republican CR also lays the groundwork for a default on our debt--an unthinkable act--by instituting a ``pay China first'' provision, and it fully embraces the dangerous and irrational policy of sequester. This bill enshrines and confirms the descent into an economy-destroying, national security-undermining, and ineffective rendering of the government that our country and our people need. The majority party, with its destructive obsession with the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and its unrestrained hostility towards government, has offered this bill notwithstanding Republicans' hollow claims of the irrationality of the sequester policy their party adopts. The majority does so notwithstanding their chairman's accurate description of their policy of sequester as ``unrealistic and ill- conceived''--his words, not mine--a policy which Chairman Rogers, himself, says ``must be brought to an end.'' His words, not mine. Chairman Rogers' vote today and the votes of his colleagues will, I expect, do just the opposite. They will vote to continue a policy that will inevitably lead to an American decline and retreat. I will not be party to the disinvestment in America's greatness. Today's bill undermines the education of our children, the security of our seniors, the present and future health of our people, the strength, training, and readiness of our Armed Forces, the growth of our economy and the creation of jobs, the quality and viability of our infrastructure, the health of our environment, the proper compensation and respect for those who labor in the public sector, and most certainly, the honoring of America's debts and obligations. Today's bill undermines all of those priorities and more. I will not support it, and I urge my colleagues to oppose it. It continues us on the path so aptly described by Chairman Rogers--again, his words, not mine--as ``this lurching path from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis.'' I urge my colleagues, with wisdom and courage on your side of the aisle, to oppose this bill.

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I am for a comprehensive, balanced, and responsible policy that will put this Nation on a fiscally sustainable, stable path. I have been and continue to be willing to work with all of my colleagues to adopt such a bill. I take nothing off the table. I believe it will take both reason and political courage to achieve such an objective. Americans are hoping and, yes, praying that we will have such wisdom and such courage. I urge my colleagues to oppose this bill and to commit themselves to adopting a bipartisan and effective alternative to this destructive and irrational path.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Cantor, for purposes of inquiring of the schedule of the week to come.

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I thank the majority leader for the schedule, and I sincerely hope that we can reach compromise next week. I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise to remember three of my constituents who tragically lost their lives in Monday's shooting along with nine other innocent victims at the Washington Navy Yard. The entire Washington metropolitan area is still in shock at the horrific news. In Maryland's Fifth District, home to many who serve or who have previously served in military and civilian roles at the Navy Yard, communities are grieving the loss of Sylvia Frasier, Frank Kohler, and Kenneth Proctor. In addition, Michael Arnold, Kathy Gaarde, John Roger Johnson, Vishnu Pandit, Martin Bodrog, Arthur Daniels, Mary Frances Knight, Gerald Reid, and Richard Michael Ridgell also lost their lives in this senseless attack. I, along with all my colleagues, offer my condolences on behalf of all who live in the Fifth District and in our country. And I wish to take a moment to reflect from this floor on their lives of hard work and dedicated service. Sylvia Frasier had been an information assurance manager at the Naval Sea Systems Command since 2000. Because she loved interacting with people so much, Sylvia took a night job at the Walmart in Waldorf, Maryland, where she was beloved by her coworkers and members of our community. Sylvia is survived by her parents, James and Eloise, and six brothers and sisters. Frank Kohler. Frank was a defense contractor at the Navy Yard. He and his wife, Michelle, who works at Pax River Naval Air Station, also in my district, lived in Tall Timbers, Maryland, and loved to go boating and fishing on the Chesapeake and in Florida. He was a past president of the Lexington Park Rotary Club and served as King Oyster at the St. Mary's County Oyster Festival, welcoming visitors to the annual celebration. I live in that county. It's a wonderful celebration. Frank will be missed. Frank also leaves behind two college-aged daughters, Alex and Meghan. Kenneth Proctor worked as a civilian utilities foreman at the Navy Yard and was in building 197 on Monday morning to get breakfast on his way to work. He had been a Federal employee for 22 years; and his eldest son, Kenneth, Jr., just recently enlisted in the United States Army. He is also survived by his former wife, Evelyn, with whom he was still very close, and their younger son, Kendull, who is in high school. I want to thank the first responders. I want to thank them for quickly and courageously answering the call on Monday morning and putting their own lives on the line to stop the shooting and prevent further loss of life. They demonstrate the best of America, along with all the dedicated men and women who serve in the Navy Yard and in the Navy, in uniform and civilian. They continue to enrich our Nation through their outstanding service. Mr. Speaker, it is particularly poignant for me because my father-in- law and my mother both worked at the Navy Yard during the course of their careers. I've been on the Navy Yard numerous times. It should be--and we thought was--well protected. Twelve people found that it was not protected enough. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives and with all who are recovering from their injuries.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I need that hour to correct so much misinformation. But I've got to say something to my friend from Texas, who has now left the floor, or is about to leave the floor, and just remind him: during the last 18 months of the Bush administration, we lost 4,491,000 jobs. Over the last 42 consecutive months, in the private sector, we have gained 7,452,000 jobs. That, my friend, is an 11.5 million turnaround to the benefit of workers. Have we done enough? We have not. Now, let me speak to this perverse rule. Let me first say to my friend, Mr. Cole, who like so many of his Republican colleagues continues to say the President signed this cloture bill. He did. Why did he sign it? Because our Republican friends threatened, as they are doing today, to put the United States of America into default for the first time in history if he did not. That was the threat. It's the threat again today. Mr. Cole, my friend, would not really support that policy, I am convinced. He does not have to have a colloquy with me, but he would not support that. The sequester, however, he did support in the cut, cap, and balance bill that was totally voted on by Republicans, a few less than my hand of Democrats, who said that they wanted the sequester as the fallback position. They got it. They got it because that's the only deal they would make. The President doesn't want sequester, I don't want sequester, and the chairman of his committee doesn't want sequester. Let me assert, without undermining his credibility, I don't think Tom Cole wants sequester. By the way, I have a quote here which indicates that Eric Cantor, the majority leader, doesn't think sequester is so hot either. Here is what Hal Rogers said, however--and I would like to debate this for some period of time, but I don't have the time: With this action, we pulled the transportation bill. The appropriations process is broken, irrelevant, dismissed. By the way, when they marked up their first three bills that they passed in the House, they didn't use their sequester number. They used the number that the Senate is marking to because they knew their number doesn't work, their number that is included in the bill that would be the result of this rule. Mr. Cole, you are my friend and I have great respect for you and I think you believe that, but here is what Hal Rogers said: With this action, pulling the transportation bill, the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted just 3 months ago. Mr. Rogers--conservative, Kentucky, Republican, chairman of the Appropriations--said: I believe the House has made its choice. Sequestration and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts must be brought to an end.

Mr. HOYER. He then went on to say: The House, Senate, and White House must come together as soon as possible on a comprehensive compromise. This bill represents zero compromise. Come together on a comprehensive compromise that repeals sequestration, takes the Nation off this lurching path from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, reduces our deficits and debt, and provides a realistic--realistic--top line discretionary spending level to fund the government in a responsible and attainable way. I've been here for some period of time. I know about compromise. My side needs to compromise. There is no compromise yet on the other side of the aisle, ladies and gentlemen--none, zero. And I say lamentably, and I say this with great sadness, in my view, there are only about 60 on your side of the aisle who want this hard-line approach, this unrealistic approach, this approach that the Senator from North Carolina who served in this House and on the Appropriations Committee said was unreasonable. Now, let me tell you what the chief executive of The Heritage Foundation said: We are pushing back on these gimmicks. Who are the gimmicks? Mr. Boehner and Mr. Cantor, saying we'll pass it, we'll get a vote on health care. If they reject it, we will still fund government. Your side wants to defund government. It may not want to shut the door on government. It wants to defund it badly and undermine our national security, our economy, and the operations of the government. Every member of the Appropriations Committee knows that to be the case. No member of the Appropriations Committee, in my view, Republican or Democrat, believes that the sequestration levels that are in this bill that this rule provides for are viable. They will not work. They will hurt Americans. But what does Michael Needham say about these gimmicks and about pursuing this? He says: I think it's exciting. It's a game. It's a game that will hurt America. Reject this rule, reject this bill, let's have real compromise.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I might say not only have I read Bob Woodward's book; I invited Bob Woodward into my office and we discussed this assertion that you and others like to refer to ad nauseam, very frankly. Does the gentleman agree that before that was ever suggested by Jack Lew to Harry Reid as a possible way to getting us not to default on our debt that you and the overwhelming majority, all but eight of your colleagues, voted for your cut, cap, and balance bill which had within it in July of 2011 a sequester so that this was a proposal that you put in legislative action?

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. Does the gentleman agree with me that the sequester is irrational?

Mr. HOYER. And we ought not to continue with it?

Mr. HOYER. I am glad the gentleman agrees.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentlelady, and I thank her for her leadership on this issue. Mr. Speaker, I lament with Mr. Lucas that we don't have a bipartisan bill, because I know that's what he wanted, that that's what he forged and that that's what has been abandoned, unfortunately, by his party. I think that's sad for the country. It's even sadder for the people who will be so adversely affected. Mr. Speaker, several weeks after House Republicans broke with longstanding practice and cut nutrition program funding out of the farm bill, they are now bringing a nutrition-denying bill to the floor. Shockingly, their version of nutrition assistance is to cut $40 billion over the next 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called ``SNAP.'' What does this mean for the 14 percent of our fellow citizens? Luckily, 86 percent of us are doing pretty well--we can put a meal on the table, and we can feed our children; but 14 percent of our fellow citizens can't have confidence that they can do that. Has America fallen so low in its moral compass that we are not prepared to make sure that, in the richest country on the face of the Earth, they have food on their tables? Have we fallen that low? It means 210,000 children dropped from the school meals program. It means 170,000 veterans in need losing some or all of their food assistance. It will affect Americans of all ages, and it will especially harm seniors, students, and individuals with disabilities. Tuesday's Census Bureau report confirms that too many Americans remain in poverty as a result of lingering effects from the recession. This is reflected in the rise over the past few years in the number of Americans who rely on food assistance to eat a decent meal from day to day. In the wealthiest country on Earth, there is no reason why so many Americans should have to go hungry, and now is certainly not the time for Congress to make it harder for them to feed themselves and their families. Do we need to bring down the deficit? We do. Do we need to do it on the backs of the poor? We do not. Instead, we ought to be helping Americans find jobs and access to opportunities so they will no longer need SNAP assistance. We should go to conference with the Senate, as I know my friend Mr. Lucas wanted to do, which passed a bipartisan farm bill in June by a vote of 66-27. Two-thirds of the Members of the United States Senate, a majority of the House Agriculture Committee, and, in my view, a majority of this House wanted to do this, but we did not do it. Of course, we should have gone to conference weeks ago, but, sadly, this Congress remains dysfunctional. I urge my colleagues to defeat this punitive legislation, and I call on the Speaker to appoint conferees for the farm bill so we can see a compromised version reflecting the compassion and wisdom shown by bipartisan-acting Congresses over the last four decades.

Mr. HOYER. I thank Mr. Lucas for his leadership, and I regret that it is not being followed.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. He is absolutely correct, of course. The Maryland flag, which I think is one of the more distinctive State flags, has four quadrants, two of which represent the Baltimore family to which the Royal charter was given, as the gentleman observed, and two represent the Crossland family, which was the wife of Lord Baltimore. So I appreciate the gentleman referring to that. And of course all of us live in States that were started by immigrants. Mr. Speaker, I rise to join my friend, Representative Cardenas, and other distinguished Members who are here tonight to pay tribute to the immigrant heritage of our country. ``From her beacon hand glows worldwide welcome,'' wrote the poet Emma Lazarus. She went on with her poem to say: ``Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp,'' cries she with silent lips. ``Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shores. Send these, the homeless, the tempest-tossed, to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.'' That iconic image we see so often is a symbol of America's welcome to those who would participate in making it better. But the poet was wrong. It was not the wretched refuse of the teeming shores that came to America. It was some of the most risk-taking, courageous, entrepreneurial people. It took courage to leave their land, to leave their language, and to come to America. But because they had ambition and vision and hope, they came. And they helped to build the greatest Nation the world has ever seen. Those words engraved on the Statue of Liberty are a creed of which our Nation must always keep faith. For Americans, citizenship means more than belonging to a place. It represents a sacred bond not only between those who carry it, but a sacred duty to make sure others can earn it who share our devotion to liberty and justice for all. Yes, those immigrants, they believed that declaration intoning pursuit of happiness. What a wonderful concept that ``we hold these truths to be self-evident.'' Pursuit of happiness is one of those values that we hold forth to all the world. You know, we hear a lot of talk, Mr. Speaker, on this floor and in our national discourse about what makes America exceptional, about what makes us unique and special among the nations of the world. The answer, I believe, is that we have brought together the best of all the nations of the world. Those who come seeking shelter on our shores do so because they want to work hard to succeed. They're willing to take the risk of leaving all that they know just for a chance to make it in America. That is why the Congress must pursue, Mr. Speaker, comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship. Mr. Speaker, 40 percent of all the Nobel Prize winners in America were born on foreign shores. They came here, contributed here, excelled here, and made our country better. Those who have come here to build a strong America--and those who were brought here as children and have known no other home--deserve a chance to keep contributing to this country through their hard work and their service to our communities. Mr. Speaker, I am the son of an immigrant, an immigrant from Denmark. Serving with me in this Chamber are the sons and daughters, grandsons and granddaughters, great-grandsons and great-granddaughters, and yes, even more generations before. Grandsons of immigrants from Mexico, from Italy, from China, from Africa, from Eastern Europe, from the Caribbean, from Asia--indeed, from every land in this world. In marking Citizenship Day, which was yesterday, it is up to us to make sure that our exceptional American idea of citizenship continues to manifest itself as an extended hand to all who love freedom, are committed to justice, and wish to build a strong America for all its people. Comprehensive immigration reform will enable us, as it has in the past, to keep that hand extended and bring into our society and economy those who believe in the power of the American Dream. Mr. Speaker, let us work together, not as Democrats and Republicans, but as fellow immigrants. First, second, third, fourth, fifth, however many generations, we are the children of immigrants. Let us work together to fix our immigration system and ensure that the lamp beside the golden door continues to shine its light to enrich our Nation and continue to offer hope and inspiration for all the world. I want to thank my colleague, Tony Cardenas, from California. He is a new Member, but an extraordinarily experienced Member. He knows about immigration firsthand. I want to thank him for taking this Special Order because it is important for America to keep that lamp lifted. And to do so, Mr. Speaker, we need, as Mr. Cardenas has said, to pass a comprehensive immigration bill. And, Mr. Speaker, we ought to pass it this year. I thank the gentleman for taking the time. I thank the gentleman for yielding me the time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, I yield to the majority leader, Mr. Cantor, for the purposes of inquiring of the schedule for the week to come.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information. I would reiterate to Members, in case they weren't listening, that the majority leader has said that we ought to be clearing our calendars for the week of the 23rd of September. That's the last week of the month. Originally, we were scheduled to be off that week, but in light of the fact that we have been unable yet to pass a continuing resolution or appropriations bills to fund the government's activities after the end of the fiscal year on September 30, I am pleased to see the majority leader is putting the House on notice. I have been telling my Members for the last 2 months to reserve that time in the contingency of which the majority leader speaks. Mr. Majority Leader, before we left in July, we had a bill on the floor to fund Transportation and the Housing and Urban Development Department as well as other items. That bill was pulled. Subsequent to that bill's being pulled, Hal Rogers, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, sent a notice out to a lot of people. I presume the gentleman had an opportunity to read it. It read: I am extremely disappointed with the decision to pull the T-HUD bill--as it's referred to--from the House calendar today. The prospects for passing this bill in September are bleak at best given the vote count on passage that was apparent this afternoon. He then made this statement, Mr. Leader: With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted 3 months ago. Thus, I--Hal Rogers speaking--believe that the House has made its choice. Sequestration and its unrealistic and ill- conceived discretionary cuts must be brought to an end. Mr. Leader, as you know, he went on to say this: The House, Senate and White House must come together as soon as possible on a comprehensive compromise that repeals sequestration, takes the Nation off this lurching path from fiscal crisis to fiscal crisis, reduces our deficits and debt, and provides a realistic, top-line, discretionary spending level to fund the government in a responsible and attainable way. That was his statement--the chairman from Kentucky, a conservative Republican--on July 31, 2013. I want to tell my friend, the majority leader, that I agree with Mr. Rogers. The sequester level is unattainable and unrealistic. That's the chairman of your Appropriations Committee, who is responsible--and has been for many years--for judging what are the appropriate expenditures for our government to maintain programs important to our country, to our economy, and to our national security. Mr. Leader, we have another issue beyond the continuing resolution which will also, as the gentleman knows, have a very substantial effect on the fiscal credibility of America, on the fiscal stability of America and on the growth of our economy, and of the confidence of our people and of people around the world, and that is the extension of our debt limit. This is going to be a shorter colloquy than we usually have because the issues that confront us are so very, very important. I want to tell the majority leader that we have not had any discussions about a possible compromise; nor have we had any discussions with Mr. McCarthy about a possible compromise; nor have I or the leader had any substantive conversations with the Speaker about a substantive compromise, in our view, consistent with what your chairman of the Appropriations Committee rightfully, in my view, observed of the fiscal realities confronting our country. You have said and Mr. Boehner has said--I believe and Ms. Pelosi believes-- that not extending the debt limit is unthinkable; and if we fail to do so, it would have very, very serious, adverse consequences on our country. So rather than discuss other further scheduling issues, except to the extent that the gentleman wants to respond, let me say to the gentleman that, with these two items in particular, I stand ready to work with your side, and my side stands ready to work with your side on a compromise; but I will tell the gentleman, with all sincerity, that we will not pursue what Mr. Rogers correctly observed is an unsustainable and damaging process. To that extent, we will not compromise on that issue because your chairman is correct--it's harmful to our country. So, in that context, Mr. Leader, I am hopeful that, as we move forward, as you've just been required to have another week added to the calendar because we've been unable so far to do our work--and this week, of course, is 1 of 2 weeks that we were supposed to meet in September, and we haven't done much. That's unfortunate. So we have used 50 percent of the time that we had for not much. I would ask the gentleman if he thinks that there is a possibility to compromise. I have observed and the world has observed the difficulty the gentleman and Mr. Boehner, the Speaker, have had in getting agreement in your own party, but we need to get agreement between the two parties and the Senate and the President of the United States so that this country can be funded and can meet its obligations and stabilize our economy. I yield to my friend.

Mr. HOYER. The problem has again been expressed. We have a single focus of the majority party, Madam Speaker, on defunding the Affordable Care Act. So many Republicans have said it is an unreasonable and irrational expectation to expect, after an election has occurred in which that was one of the principal issues in the election, for the President or, frankly, the Senate, to agree to the objectives of the Republican Party that lost in America on this issue. There was a poll taken November 2012. The President of the United States won that poll. Your myopic focus on that one issue threatens to shut down government and put at risk the creditworthiness of the United States of America. That is not what the American people expect. Unless the gentleman wants to respond, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. What a perfect bill this is. Our Republican friends don't like taxes, they don't like the collection of taxes, and, of course, none of us do. And they don't like affordable care for our citizens, quality care for our citizens, accessible care for our citizens. So, with this stroke, they can attack both. The gentleman who just spoke asserts that the American people know. Republicans have made an assertion about the oversight of taxpayers to see whether or not they are committing fraud, i.e., claiming to be social welfare organizations when everybody in America knows they are solely political organizations; and the Republicans never mention it was across the board, not targeted. And the Affordable Care Act, they don't like that either. They would, as my friend from Texas said, still like to have the insurance companies in charge--not the patient, not the doctor, but the insurance companies. Mr. Speaker, less than 2 weeks ago, Republicans were on this floor for the 38th and 39th times to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the accessible care act, the quality care act. Now we have the 40th time we've been at this. The American people, of course, want to see us working on jobs. They want to see us working on investment and education. They want to see us being able to compete with the world. But what do we do? We continue to beat this horse. And contrary to my Republican friends' assertion, Americans say, overwhelmingly, when asked do you want repeal or do you want a fix, make it better, do things better, make it more efficient, they opt for the latter overwhelmingly. But as the gentleman from Texas just said, you go to the Web site-- and not 2\1/2\ years; not 2\1/2\ years, I tell my friend from Texas, it has been 7 years, since 2006 when we started working on this--but there's no fix, no fix on the Web site, no fix on this floor. Today, their newfound populism is nowhere to be seen as they vote to repeal tax credits and subsidies designed to make health care more affordable for those same people--working families and small businesses--who haven't been able to get insurance and are left at risk without the security of it. Suddenly, the party that never met a tax break it didn't like is pursuing a tax increase of more than $1 trillion on small businesses and the middle class. As a result, they are making health care more expensive, and millions of Americans will no longer be able to access affordable health care.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, this bill makes all those folks pawns in Republicans' single-focused quest to undo health care reform at the expense of every other pressing challenge we face as a Nation. It's shameful, Mr. Speaker, that this House continues to waste the American people's times on health care repeal votes that won't go anywhere, and they know it. The Senate will not pass this bill and the President will not sign it. We have pressing business before us that needs immediate attention: finishing appropriations bills, completing our work on the budget that provides a balanced alternative to the sequester, ensuring America can pay its bills, and taking action to create jobs. That's what we ought to be doing, not this continued foolishness.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, as the Speaker knows, I am also the minority whip. As the minority whip, at the close of the week we normally have a colloquy between the majority leader and myself. That colloquy is to discuss the schedule for the week to come; it is to discuss the priorities that each side believes ought to be considered by this House. We do not have that colloquy when the week to come does not have a session. We have now adjourned, or will soon adjourn, for a period of 5 weeks when we will not be in session. We have adjourned without doing the people's business. We have adjourned without resolving some of the most vexing challenges that confront this Congress and confront our country. We have adjourned without addressing some of the priorities that the Senate has acted upon and sent to this House, or if they haven't sent them to this House have passed them and are ready to respond to our initiatives. Mr. Speaker, that's unfortunate. Mr. Speaker, I will be talking about in this hour--and I probably won't take the whole hour--but I will be talking about some of the things that we have not done that we ought to be doing, some of the things that we ought to be doing rather than taking a 5-week break. But let me quickly add: I'm one of the Democratic leaders. I do not criticize the Republicans for this 5-week break, because we normally take a break in August so that Members and their families can take some time, so that Members can be home to talk to their constituents, seek their advice, seek their counsel, explain what is happening here in Washington to, at this point in time, a rightfully angry group of Americans who see their board of directors that we call the Congress of the United States not working very well, not attendant to the significant issues that confront us. The House passed a budget. It passed a budget about 125 days ago. The Senate passed a budget about 123 days ago. The way the process is supposed to work is the way it works in your families, Mr. Speaker, and in my family. When we have a dispute, we sit down, we talk about it and we try to come to a resolution. Some call that resolution a ``compromise,'' a recognition that you have a perspective, I have a perspective; if we are going to move forward, we need to harmonize those perspectives. That is what democracy is all about--bringing together disparate views from various geographic locations with various interests at heart and try to resolve those differences and move our country forward. Notwithstanding that, Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding the fact that the Speaker says that--and said during the campaign--he wanted to make sure that: a) the House worked its will; b) that we pursued regular order; and c) that he wanted the Senate to pass a budget, they did so. But the House has refused to go to conference. That's unfortunate, but it is not unique in this House. The Senate also passed an immigration bill. That immigration bill tries to deal with one of the most vexing challenges that confronts our country. It is an issue that has a large amount of agreement outside this institution. The United States Chamber of Commerce, representing much of business in America, and the AFL-CIO, representing organized labor, have agreed that this immigration bill should be supported. The agriculture community from California to Florida to Maine to Arizona have essentially agreed this is a bill which will move us forward. Essentially, there is a broad-based agreement that the Senate bill is something that will create jobs, grow our economy, and make our country more stable. There is a general agreement--I would say an almost unanimous agreement--that we need to keep our borders secure, that people whom we do not authorize should not be allowed to come into the country. We all agree on that. So we are working to make sure that our borders are even more secure. There is unanimity on that issue. In fact, the Senate appropriated a large number of dollars to accomplish that objective. We have not taken up an immigration bill in this House; and, certainly, because we have not, we haven't gone to conference. Then, Mr. Speaker, we took up a farm bill on the floor of this House, significantly, after the Senate had passed a bipartisan bill dealing with agriculture and dealing with assistance to those in America--the richest country on the face of the Earth--who are going hungry, a large number of whom are children who live in America. The Committee on Agriculture passed out a bipartisan bill in the last Congress, and it was never brought to the floor by my Republican friends. This year, the committee also passed out a bipartisan bill that was brought to this floor. It could have and should have been passed with a bipartisan vote, not because I agreed with all of it, but because it was appropriate to have a bill to go to conference with on this important subject. Our Republican friends added three amendments which we thought were clearly harmful to those in need in America. As a result, we didn't vote for it, but that's not why it failed, Mr. Speaker. It failed because 62 Republicans voted against the bill reported out with every Republican voting in committee for it; but as Mr. Lucas, the chairman of the committee observed, it apparently wasn't good enough for those 62 Republicans. Compromise seems very difficult for some people in this House, but I again remind us all it is absolutely essential. We then passed a farm bill which said, unlike the last half a century, we would drop food assistance to the needy in America. Mr. Speaker, my faith tells me to try to feed the hungry, house the homeless, clothe the naked, attend the least of these. The bill that we passed for the first time in a half a century left out the neediest in America. In the course of passing that bill, the chairman of the Rules Committee, Mr. Speaker, said we are passing this bill so that we can go to conference with the clear implication at that point in time--because the Senate bill does take care of the neediest who are hungry, adults and children, along with the needs of our farmers, who produce our food and fiber on which all of us rely--that, with this bill, we can go to conference. Mr. Speaker, you and I both know we haven't gone to conference. So we leave here with much of the business of America undone, unattended, without an effort to reach compromise. Mr. Speaker, additionally, as you know, on September 30, the authorization for the operations of government and the funding thereof will come to an end, so it will be necessary for us to come to an agreement. I hope--but I know of none--that there are being plans made to utilize these next 5 weeks to try to reach a compromise, an agreement, a way forward to ensure the funding of our government and the operations so critical to so many millions not only here but around the world. Mr. Speaker, we began the July work period with a measure of optimism. With 4 full weeks of session in July and the first few days of August, we have not met that optimism. There was much reason to hope that this House could make serious headway on appropriations bills and reach a compromise on student loans. Now, we passed that student loan compromise this Wednesday. That was a good thing to do, and it was along the lines that the President proposed some months ago. My Republican colleagues would rightfully say it was along the lines that they had proposed and passed this House, and of course our Senate colleagues will say it is the compromise that the Senate formed and that we passed. But in this time, the majority's strategy for moving appropriations bills through this House has utterly and completely failed. The Ryan budget--or the ``Ryan retreat,'' as I call it--has failed. With 4 full, consecutive weeks in which to get things done, we have not enacted a single appropriations bill that was consistent with either the Budget Control Act of 2011 or this year's Ryan budget. In fact, we haven't enacted a single appropriations bill--period. Now, we've passed bills through this House, but we haven't been able to get to compromise, and that's not unusual. We've found the appropriations process difficult over the past few years, but it is still an indication of failure to attempt to reach compromise that we have not gone to a budget conference to determine what numbers we will use, because, if you can't agree on a number or numbers, it is impossible to agree on legislation. Frankly, Mr. Speaker, I sadly note that my friends in the majority have not even had the courage or, in my opinion, the intellectual honesty to go to conference on the budget to resolve these differences. Why? Because I believe that Mr. Ryan believes that any compromise he would make would not be supported by his party because they don't want to compromise, which is anathema to many of our Republican colleagues. ``Regular order,'' it seems, means simply ``their order.'' Now, as I've said, we are leaving for the August recess with just 9 legislative days remaining until the end of the fiscal year--9 days. That's what is scheduled for legislative business between now and September 30--9 days. As I said, not a single appropriations bill has been sent to the President's desk. A bill that we were considering this week, which was supposed to be the principal item of business this week, was taken from the floor because it did not have the support of the majority party. This is not a recipe for responsible governance by the majority. It is a recipe for another manufactured crisis and threat of a government shutdown. Mr. Speaker, our economy, our businesses, and our middle class families cannot and ought not endure further uncertainty as a result of this Congress' failure to do its job. The most egregious manifestation of the majority's failure to govern has been the irrational sequester policy that they not only refused to prevent but have now fully embraced. Why do I say they've fully embraced it? Because it gets to their number included in the Ryan budget without their having to make one single choice of cutting a single item. It simply says, This is the number. Meet it--no prioritization, no choice, no decision. The Ryan budget passed this House in March without a single Democratic vote--an endorsement, in theory, of this Republican Congress of cuts even deeper than the sequester imposes. Now, let me say parenthetically that a lot of my Republican colleagues will stand at that podium or at one of these podiums and say, This is the President's sequester. Mr. Speaker, America needs to know that is not true, and I believe too many who make that statement know it not to be true. We passed legislation in this House in the middle of July of 2011 which said we're going to reach certain numbers, and if we don't, we're going to have a sequester. Mr. Speaker, you may recall that that was the Republican Cut, Cap, and Balance bill, whose policy was to have a sequester if the numbers set forth were not reached. That was before it was included in the bill which was a compromise to reach resolution so that America did not default on its bills. I was not for the sequester. The President was not for the sequester, and we Democrats voted overwhelmingly--almost unanimously, perhaps unanimously--against that Cut, Cap, and Balance bill and its sequester. Why? Because cutting across the board the highest priority and the lowest priority by exactly the same percentage is an irrational policy. No family in America would do it. Mr. Speaker, the example I use is that somebody in the family loses his job. The family income goes down. They have a budget. They have a budget for food, and they have a budget for movies. The sequester says take 10 percent from food and 10 percent from movies. There is no rational family in America that would do that. They would say, This month or this 6 months or this year, we're not going to the movies, but we're going to keep food on the table. That's the rational judgment that we would make, but that's not what the sequester says. Having said that, we have offered amendments seven times in the last 6 months to set aside the sequester while, at the same time, reducing the deficit by the same amount. Seven times we were refused by the majority party the opportunity to even offer that amendment to have, as the Speaker says he wants, the House work its will. If they didn't agree with our amendment, they could have voted against it; but they didn't want to deal with our amendment because they like the sequester, because the sequester gets them to their number without their having to make a decision on cutting a single thing. As I predicted then, when theory turns to practice in the Ryan budget, even Republicans, themselves, cannot live with the policies. Their own chairman of the Appropriations Committee characterized just the other day--this was Chairman Rogers of Kentucky, a conservative Republican, my friend with whom I've worked for many, many years as a member of the Appropriations Committee--he characterized the cuts included in the Ryan budget as ``unrealistic and ill-conceived.'' That's the Republican chairman of the Appropriations Committee saying of the Republican budget, known as the Ryan budget, ``unrealistic and ill-conceived.'' Their policy of sequester remains, Mr. Speaker, an albatross around the neck of the American people and of our economy. If there were not a single Democrat in this House or in the Senate, not a single Democrat, Mr. Speaker, it is my belief that the Ryan budget could not pass this Congress. The Republican pro-sequester spending-cuts-only approach simply does not work, and this week's Transportation-HUD appropriation debacle proves it. I want to quote again the chairman of the committee: With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted just 3 months ago. Let me make it clear. No Democrat had the opportunity to vote on this; no Democrat voted against this. We weren't for it--make no mistake--but the decision was made completely on the majority side of the aisle that they didn't have the votes for their bill. They could not implement the very budget that was adopted just 3 months ago. ``Thus, Mr. Speaker, I believe the House has made its choice,'' said Chairman Rogers. ``Sequestration and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts must be brought to an end,'' so said Hal Rogers, Republican, conservative from Kentucky, chairman of the Appropriations Committee. ``Sequestration must be brought to an end.'' As I've said, Mr. Speaker, those are the words of Hal Rogers. Not my words, his words. I know that Chairman Rogers is not the only Member of his party who is fed up with the Tea Party faction and their extreme agenda. As we prepare to go home to our districts over the month of August and hear their concerns about jobs and our economy and the pain of sequester's senseless cuts, I have spoken to hundreds of employees who work in our defense establishment who are lamenting the fact that not only are they being forced to take off 1 day a week for no pay and they can't even volunteer to work, who are lamenting the fact that those at the point of the spear in Afghanistan and other troubled parts of the word, they cannot take off Friday. They need the support that we give them from here in this country and, indeed, around the world in the civilian workforce, in DOD, the Department of Defense, all the time, not just 4 days a week. As we prepare to go home to our districts over the month of August, as I said, and hear their concerns and the pain of the sequester's senseless cuts, I hope that we can turn the page of the July work period and return in a different spirit. See, September need not be July's second act. In the short time we have left, just 9 legislative days before the fiscal year ends, I would urge the Speaker to take a different path. Instead of taking the familiar road of partisanship, posturing and spin, let us embrace the path of compromise and shared accomplishment, one we in this Congress might call, as the poet Robert Frost said, the road less traveled by. It's a wonderful poem by one of America's greatest poets. He said: I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. We have difficult and pressing challenges to address in a short time: passing a budget; replacing the sequester with a balanced alternative; and averting a default on our debt, a default which would be catastrophic for America, for its people, for its economy, and would have ramifications throughout the world. We can begin, Mr. Speaker, by going to conference on the budget and allowing both sides to sit down and start working on an agreement. That seems to be, Mr. Speaker, the road less traveled by; a road forward; a road that leads to positive, constructive, supportable results, not backward; a road to constructive compromise, not destructive confrontation; and to results that benefit our people and our economy. Mr. Speaker, such a road would surely make all the difference for this Congress and for this country. Mr. Speaker, we need to work together. Newt Gingrich, a former Speaker with whom I served, reached a compromise with President Clinton. There were a lot of people on his side of the aisle that didn't want to see an agreement between President Clinton and Speaker Gingrich. It was on the funding of government, the basic responsibility this Congress has, or any board of directors of any enterprise has. Mr. Gingrich stood at that podium, Mr. Speaker, and talked to what he referred to as his perfectionist caucus, people who wanted it their way and were not prepared to compromise from a road other than their way. He said, Mr. Speaker, to that perfectionist caucus, Look, I know this is not exactly what you want, but the American people have elected a President of another party, Bill Clinton, and they've elected a Senate with a lot of Democrats in there who don't agree with us, and, yes, some Republicans who don't agree with us. They also elected a lot of Democrats to the House of Representatives. He said, Obviously, a majority of the Members of the House were Republicans. But if the country was going to move forward, if there was going to be a positive resolution to the conflict that existed between differing points of view, that there would need to be compromise. He admonished that perfectionist caucus to understand that this was a democracy, not a dictatorship, and that agreement and compromise was the essence of what democracy meant. Mr. Speaker, I hope that over the 5 weeks that are to come that Members will reflect, communicate with our citizens, and come to an understanding of the necessity to act not just our way or my way, not just to reflect what I want, but to reflect what we as a country working together can accomplish. Mr. Speaker, if we do that, America will continue to be the greatest country on the face of the Earth, providing opportunity for our children and our families, our workers and our seniors, and continuing to be that shining city on a hill of which Ronald Reagan spoke so glowingly Mr. Speaker, let us hope in these 5 weeks we learn how to work together. That's what our people want. As importantly, that is what our people need. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the ranking member of the Rules Committee, my friend, Ms. Slaughter, for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I want to say that I have a great deal of respect for the gentleman from Oklahoma. But I say that this House is not working. And the American people are angry with all of us, 100 percent of us. The gentleman from Florida just said ``surely we can find common ground.'' The gentleman talked about shutting down the government being an unreasonable response, although many in his party promote that. The President's not promoting it; the President is against it. You know our side is against that. Surely, we can reach common ground. Yesterday, we had eight bills on the floor on suspension. The public doesn't know process, I understand that--they're not too interested in hearing about process. But suspensions make for short debates and no amendments, no ability to make changes in those bills. That's why they were offered on suspension. Apparently, three of those bills were pulled because they didn't think they had the votes. I don't think they had the votes either-- ``they'' being the majority. So what did they do in their pursuit of a transparent ``let the House work its will'' pledge that they had made to the American public when they sought control, being in the majority? They've gone to the Rules Committee. One rule, five bills. How can you debate five different bills with rules, whether the rules are correct? And what are those rules? Closed, no amendments, limited discussion. Yesterday, we had an appropriations bill on the floor. It was pulled. It was pulled, as I predicted it would be, because the Republican majority cannot get its act together. It disagrees with itself. It is a deeply divided party. I was just on television, and they played a clip of Rush Limbaugh before that, and Rush Limbaugh said ``we ought not to compromise because we don't have anything in common with them''--meaning Democrats. My response was: ``Oh, I think Rush Limbaugh is wrong.'' We are all Americans, and we are all elected here by Americans to serve them and to serve their country, to serve our communities and our neighbors, and to try to do things that make sense. Americans elected all of us from different places, different interests.