Steny Hoyer

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. I think there is a lot of concern, not necessarily on these Members' parts, and we all know this, about 30-second simplistic ``gotcha'' ads on television which don't discuss the substance of the ramifications of actions. The bill that passed passed overwhelmingly. The previous question would have stopped that bill going forward. Obviously, when you were in control you wanted the previous question passed so you could move your substantive legislation forward. There is no difference over here. But the ``gotcha'' ads certainly are something that in the minds of everybody on both sides of the aisle----

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. What I said was we'll bring the proposal to create those jobs to the floor--not to cut it, but to spend it because we believe that that will create 185,000 jobs. So I just didn't want to be misconstrued in what I said. The gentleman will have an opportunity to vote against that, of course.

Mr. HOYER. Well, first of all, we don't believe this is a real vote. Our Members don't believe it's a real vote. Our Members are cognizant of why it's being done. But the 185,000 jobs, clearly, those nine Members that you referenced did not vote to eliminate 185,000 jobs. But all your Members did. The difference is because you are not going to run ads against your Members. The fact of the matter is that if you want to do real things to create real jobs, we're prepared to work with you. We believe the program you wanted to eliminate does in fact score at creating 185,000 jobs. You call it welfare. We call it work. We think it was an appropriate expenditure. As a matter of fact, as the gentleman may know, we have that expenditure in our jobs bill. Why? Because it's scored to create 185,000 jobs, put people to work, allow them to support their families, allow them to live with some degree of dignity. And we think that's appropriate in a very, very strained economy to this date. We're coming back, but as we've seen lately, it is fragile and this gum, grease, and oil has caused us problems in terms of confidence. And we need to keep confidence up and not make the mistakes that have been made in the past.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield on that particular point?

Mr. HOYER. As you know, I schedule the legislation. Are you asking me not to schedule the 40 percent of those post office bills that your Members are requesting? Because if you are, I will not schedule them.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Boehner and I did attempt to pursue some meaningful restraints last week, and unfortunately, we couldn't get agreement to do so on your side of the aisle. Having said that, we certainly agree that we need to get a handle on the extraordinary deficit picture that confronts us. I know I am repetitive, but in 2001, President Bush came before the Congress and said we have a $5.6 trillion surplus. Unfortunately, that $5.6 trillion surplus was eliminated, and in fact, $5 trillion of additional deficit was incurred, giving us a $10 trillion deficit when this administration took over. That's unfortunate. I will tell the gentleman, as he knows, he and others have voted for trillions, that's with a T, of dollars of unfunded liabilities for the Federal Government, either reduction in revenues, which of course you say will grow the economy--unfortunately, it did not--or a prescription drug bill which was not paid for which was hundreds of billions of dollars, not minimal dollars. But I will tell the gentleman that we are interested in working with you in a meaningful way, not in procedural vote ways, but in meaningful ways to reduce the deficit that confronts us, including reducing areas of spending, which we think is appropriate. With respect to the motion that you made today, a procedural motion, if it hadn't been a procedural motion, maybe a real motion--and of course many of those programs were in existence for the 12 years that you controlled the Congress of the United States, as the gentleman well knows. The motion today, of course, would have affected a program which is going to create, we believe, 185,000 jobs. We think that's important in an economy that is still struggling to get jobs back. But we applaud the efforts to bring forward meaningful, important ideas. Unfortunately, that has not always been our experience. I am sure you read there have been a lot of motions to recommit that have been made. Now we are onto previous questions now, but motions to recommit. Norm Ornstein wrote an article about those just the other day in which he said, The unfortunate fact is that the motion to recommit with instructions has for more than a decade become a hollow vehicle and farce. Now, the American people don't want to see us participate in hollow vehicles and farces. What they want to see is us work together in real ways to effect the kind of fiscal responsibility that we had in the nineties, and unfortunately we did not have in the last decade. We need to return to that. We have, as you know, taken very substantive steps. One was to pay for what we buy--not a previous question--legislation on this floor which said we are going to pay for what we buy. That was in place in the nineties, put in place in a bipartisan way with Mr. Bush and Mr. Gephardt leading the way and others. Again adopted in a bipartisan way with Mr. Gingrich and President Clinton working together. And then of course jettisoned under not your personal leadership, but under the leadership of the Republican Party in 2001, 2002, 2003, formally jettisoned in 2003, in which we said, no, we don't believe that paying for what we buy is the policy that we are going to pursue. And in fact you didn't pursue it. You created large deficits every year that you controlled the Congress: the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Every year without fail. So I tell my friend that we want to join together in real efforts. We are sorry that in a partisan way PAYGO was jettisoned. We are also sorry that the commission that the President established by Executive order didn't pass because so many of your colleagues in the Senate who said they were for the idea of setting up a commission to propose real restraint in spending, not only in terms of discretionary dollars but in terms of entitlement dollars, that so many of your colleagues in the Senate opposed that, and as result we don't have a statutory commission, we have a Presidentially appointed commission. I am hopeful that they will make substantive recommendations. I am hopeful that our Members and your Members will join together in making recommendations to us. And as you know, both Mr. Reid, the leader in the Senate, and Speaker Pelosi have indicated that we will put their recommendations on the floor. If the Senate passes them, we will put them on the floor here. Hopefully, we can work together toward the end that I think we both seek even though there may be disagreement on the process that is being pursued.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. I was just going to say that I still agree with both of those statements, Mr. Spratt's and my own.

Mr. HOYER. I agree with that.

Mr. HOYER. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER. I ask the gentleman, there is a Member on your side of the aisle who has, in my opinion, a very thoughtful, courageous, and substantive proposal. I happen not to agree with it, but I think it is a courageous, intellectually honest proposal. And that is Mr. Ryan, who's the ranking member of the Budget Committee. If the gentleman would like us to put that budget on the floor--which is from his chair when he was in the majority of the Budget Committee--that is a really substantive proposal. Again, I don't agree with it, but I think it intellectually is an honest, effective proposal to deal with a very serious problem, not a little problem, but a trillion-dollar problem; not a little problem that sounds good in sound bites but is not going to get us to where we need to be. I think Mr. Ryan has such a proposal, and I certainly would urge the chairman of the Budget Committee to agree to make sure that's on the floor because I believe that is a substantive proposal. The gentleman says we don't put his substantive proposals on the floor. That's made by the ranking member of the Budget Committee, one of the leaders of his party, representing your party on the Budget Committee. And I would be glad to make arrangements to have that proposal on the floor. Would the gentleman want me to do that?

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker. I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns tomorrow, it adjourn to meet at 12:30 p.m. on Monday next for morning-hour debate; and further, that when the House adjourns on that day, it adjourn to meet at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday, May 25, 2010, for morning-hour debate.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlelady from Ohio, Congresswoman Fudge, for yielding. I thank her for her leadership in bringing this bill to the floor. I thank my friend, Mr. Petri, for his work on this legislation. I am once again, and too infrequently nowadays, glad to join with one of my best friends in the House of Representatives, Roy Blunt from Missouri, who has worked with me for many years on this issue with the Shriver and Kennedy families. I'm pleased that Patrick Kennedy is on the floor with us, my good friend and a wonderful Member of Congress, who's done such an extraordinary job representing Rhode Island and our country, and who Eunice Shriver is, I know, very proud of as she watches his commitment to those who have confronted disabilities and medical challenges. Patrick Kennedy has been a giant in raising the voice--and showed extraordinary courage. To that extent, that is consistent with the Kennedy legacy of courage in the face of adversity. Patrick, thank you very much. I met Patrick's aunt in 1962, long before many people here were born. It was at a Young Democrats convention at the Washingtonian Motel on Route 70 in Montgomery County. Sargent Shriver was the speaker at that convention. Judy and I were at that convention. I was then 22 or 23 years of age, and I was, of course, properly awestruck by Sargent Shriver and Eunice Shriver, having gotten into politics because of John Kennedy's call for young people to become engaged. Patrick is correct in many ways. Certainly, one of, if not the giant of the family, was Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who, through her relationship with her sister, understood firsthand the discrimination, the isolation, the prejudice that can be directed at somebody with a disability, or at least with somebody that didn't have the same abilities that others have. Not only did she lament that but she lived her life to reverse that. That's what Patrick was talking about, compellingly. That's why Roy Blunt and I have joined together over the years to support this legislation. We have had the privilege of working with Tim Shriver and Anthony Shriver, who carry on the legacy. What a wonderful family, from generation to generation passing the torch of service from one generation to the next. I have had the privilege of being a close friend of, as I said, Patrick and his father, with whom I worked very closely over the years, and so many other members of his family. This legislation is named in honor of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who dedicated her long life to public service--not an elected office, but like so many more of us that served in elected office, millions and millions of Americans who saw a challenge and sought to meet it, especially committed to the inclusion of those with intellectual disabilities in the mainstream of our society. I was proud to call her friend. I was proud to be at NIH the day that we named a center for Eunice Kennedy Shriver. More importantly, she was a friend to millions of people around the world, many of whom never knew her name and will not realize how they are the beneficiaries of her leadership and her commitment. We have Eunice Kennedy Shriver to thank in large part for the Special Olympics and for better understanding of the challenges and potential of people with intellectual disabilities. This bill carries her legacy of inclusion and public service. It reauthorizes the Special Olympics Act, which continues grant funding for a remarkable movement that has promoted athletic competition and health for more than four decades. It emphasizes the importance of competition and competing and participating. Yes, winning is nice. But in the competition itself is the victory--the victory of spirit, the victory of courage, the victory of self-satisfaction. Today, the Special Olympics reaches more than 3 million athletes in more than 150 countries. For those athletes, the Special Olympics means the joy of competition and the challenge of pushing themselves to be their very best. For the rest of us, the Special Olympics has increased respect for people with disabilities. From time to time, those of us who have participated in the Special Olympics, particularly some time ago, when huggers were allowed--we were huggers. Huggers simply meant, Congratulations. Well done. Keep on keeping on. This bill also reauthorizes grants to expand the successful Best Buddies program, which is dedicated to the social integration of children and adults with intellectual disabilities. Again, Eunice Shriver and John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, other Kennedy siblings saw Rosemary and they saw the isolation to which she was subjected. I had the opportunity of visiting Anthony in Florida, and Rosemary was at his house. The love and care extended to Rosemary was extraordinary. This was something that they lived, not just fought for. Its volunteers gain valuable leadership opportunities and its participants with disabilities learn that they are valuable members of our communities. It is a valuable part of Eunice Kennedy Shriver's legacy, one that has found its way to more than a thousand schools and workplaces, and it deserves--and I'm sure will get--our support. As Mrs. Shriver has said about the athletes whose competition she's supported for so many years, Special Olympic athletes are spokespersons for freedom itself--they ask for the freedom to live, the freedom to belong, the freedom to contribute, the freedom to have a chance. That should be the goal for every American with a disability, and indeed it should be the goal of us all. This bill brings it a little closer to realization. I, again, want to thank my good friend, Roy Blunt, who has been so deeply involved in this effort. It has been, as always, a privilege to be his partner in this effort. I urge its overwhelming adoption and again thank Congresswoman Fudge and Congressman Petri for their efforts.

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for legislative business with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday and Thursday, Mr. Speaker, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. A complete list of suspensions will be announced by the close of business tomorrow. In addition, Mr. Speaker, we will consider Senate amendments to H.R. 4213, the American Jobs Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act. I yield back.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I want to tell the gentleman, although I announced only the American Jobs Bill Closing Tax Loopholes and Preventing Outsourcing Act, my expectation is we will also deal with the COMPETES Act next week as well. That bill, we believe, is a very important bill. We think it's very important for jobs. We think it's very important for investing in our future, and we intend to bring that bill to the floor as well next week.

Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will just yield on that, are you referring to the paragraph that says: ``Presidents Clinton and Bush pushed through a series of tax changes, credits, lower rates, higher exemptions that slashed income taxes for poor and middle-class families''?

Mr. HOYER. I don't think the same would be because of both the Senate and the House. I'm hopeful that we will pass the supplemental through the House, but it won't be in the same position because we haven't had a conference on the supplemental. The Senate is working on a bill, as the gentleman knows. We're working on a bill. I have talked to the chairman, and he is trying to get the matter together for the committee. And I am hopeful that we will pass it through the House. My urging is that we pass it through the House prior to the Memorial Day break. But, obviously, the gentleman knows we will not have effected a conference by that time. But we want to do so very shortly because, clearly, we need to make sure the resources are available for our men and women in harm's way in both Iraq and Afghanistan and in other troubled spots of the world.

Mr. HOYER. We've done some very substantive things, most of which your party has opposed. We passed last year the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act which you voted against and which your party voted, to a person, against. I don't know whether you happened to see that, as a result of that act, people last year paid the lowest tax rates that they have paid since 1950. We reduced over $300 billion in taxes for individuals and small business. Now, you can make fun of the resolutions that your party introduces and my party congratulating people for things or noting that post offices are being renamed or things of that nature, but that's a ruse. That's not the substance of what we do here. Members want to acknowledge their hometown folks. I've been in the legislature for a long period of time. They did that in the State senate. They do it here. And sometimes it's easy to make fun of. But we've done some very substantive things. The gentleman knows that. This is one of the most productive Congresses that I've served in over the last 30 years in terms of very important pieces of legislation. Your party has voted, in many instances, against that legislation. The proof of the pudding, of course, is in its eating. You didn't ask me where the jobs are this time as you usually do. There were 290,000 new jobs created, 230,000 jobs the month before that, and an average of 100,000 jobs have been created per month over the last 4 months. The gentleman, over the last 4 months, hasn't mentioned jobs, apparently because he thinks perhaps we found them where, frankly, the previous administration lost them wherever they were lost. We need to bring them back. We are investing in bills to get jobs back. We're investing in making sure that people who have lost their jobs have some sustenance to support themselves and their families. We don't think that's de minimis legislation. We think it's critically important. We are passing legislation to make sure that people have health care; that when they lose their job, they lose their insurance, they get sick, that they have a COBRA coverage that they can count on. We don't think that is de minimis. We are working on legislation to make sure that doctors get reimbursed at appropriate levels so they will continue to serve the seniors of America under Medicare. We don't think that is de minimis action. Now, I could go on and on, as I am sure you know and probably my colleagues know; but we believe we are passing a lot of legislation to respond to a deep crisis of economic depths, unknown since 75 years ago in the Great Depression, that we inherited and we are trying to respond to. And we are now creating jobs. We are now expanding the economy. Somebody that you may agree with most of the time, Larry Kudlow, said, you ought to stop talking down the economy. The facts speak for themselves. GDP growth for three quarters in a row, jobs being created, stock market up. It has been down and up in little glitches, but it is up some 70 percent on the Dow, 80 percent on the S&P, and almost 100 percent on the NASDAQ. None of that we think is de minimis, I tell my friend. Both sides, by the way, do what you just did. We did it to you and we made fun of these little resolutions that don't take much time but are meaningful to the constituencies that hear about them and appreciate the fact that their efforts throughout the country were acknowledged in one way or another, or that somebody that has great respect in their community was honored. Many soldiers and sailors and airmen and marines are being honored by having post offices named for them in their communities. Others are being honored. So I tell my friend, we need to be serious. We have a critical deficit confronting us. We have a critical long-term deficit confronting us. We have a critical problem of an unsustainable entitlement regime confronting us. The Peterson Institute is running hearings all over this country to say, Americans, tell us what you think. I don't think your idea is a bad idea of asking Americans. We all want to ask Americans: What do you think? So we can come together to solve what we both agree is a very serious economic ditch into which we have fallen. We need to get out of it. We need to work together to do that. The American public expects us to do that.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Maybe the public gets tired of this back and forth. But the gentleman talks in ways that indicate that all of a sudden, in 2009, January, when President Obama took office, somehow the world fell apart. In point of fact, as the gentleman knows, in the last year of the Clinton administration, we gained 1.9 million new jobs. In the last year of the Bush administration, under the policies that the gentleman supported and his party was very enthusiastic about, we lost 3.8 million jobs. That is a 5.7 million job turnaround. Yes, we were in dire straits. And conservative economists, Republican economists, Mr. Zandi and others, as well as progressive economists, liberal economists, call them what you will, all said: If you do not invest in this economy, if you do not invest in stabilizing this economy, very frankly, you are going to lose 800,000 in additional revenues. Which meant that you would be in the same debt position whether you invested that money or didn't. Now, in investing that money, I say to my friend, with all but maybe 2 months over the last 15 months we have had a straight line out of the almost 800,000 jobs that under your policies were lost in the last month of the Bush administration. Almost 800,000 jobs. We have been on a straight line to now where 5 of the last 6 months, we have had positive job growth. Is it enough? It is not. Should we do more? We should. Should we cooperate in doing that? Absolutely. That is what the American public expects us to do. But don't forget the fact of how we got here. Don't forget the fact that an awful lot of economists on your other side of the aisle said we needed to invest or the economy was going to fall even further, and we wouldn't have that straight line out of the depths of loss of jobs into the positive numbers of creating jobs. Let me also say to you, you mentioned taxes, and you mentioned the fact that somehow it was because incomes fell. Incomes did fall, and that was unfortunate. They fell because, we believe--we don't agree on this--it was because of the economic policies that were pursued. We think our facts are valid. I would remind you, 216,000 jobs per month for 96 months under the Clinton administration, average, 216,000; 21 months of over 400,000 jobs. The Bush administration had 5 of those months, and the Bush administration's average job creation over 96 months was 11,000 jobs; 216,000 versus 11,000 jobs. So the economy was in great distress. Yes, we had to invest. Yes, we had to borrow. Because, if we didn't, our grandchildren--and I have grandchildren. I have a great grandchild. I am very worried about what they are going to inherit, and I knew that we could not allow the economy to fall through the floor. But let me say this. This is from USA Today, from an article that appeared: Taxes Paid Have Fallen Much Faster Than Income in This Recession. Your proposition was taxes fell because income fell. Personal income fell 2 percent last year. That is 2 percent too much. Actually, it is about 10 percent too much, because we would have hoped they would have gone up 5 percent or 6 percent or 7 percent. But listen to this next sentence. I know you will want to get this next sentence: ``Taxes paid dropped 23 percent. The BEA classified Social Security taxes as insurance payments.'' So I tell my friend, we inherited a terrible economy from the Bush administration, and we have been working very hard to bring it back. And almost every indication indicates that in fact it is coming back. We invested in trying to keep the automobile companies employing people, and they are doing that. So I tell my friend that I did not, as you recall, imply that you had talked down the economy. What I said was Larry Kudlow, talking to his fellow conservatives, said, Don't do it, because the facts don't warrant that kind of attack. So we are going to continue to work. I want to work with you. We want to get this economy moving. We want to create jobs. You will have legislation on the floor next week, hopefully you will work with us, that we think will do that. It will create summer jobs. It will invest in infrastructure with the America Bonds program. So there are a number of things that you will have an opportunity to vote on next week, I hope you will join us, which are going to continue to stabilize those who don't have jobs and to create jobs for them in the new economy.

Mr. HOYER. I am certainly hopeful that we will deal with the issue of spending levels by the time we bring appropriation bills to the floor. We are working on that. I will say to my friend who has just given us an exposition on his new program--and he gave the Web site address, I think--that, first of all, let me say that we welcome the interest in the Republican Party in cutting spending. Of course, spending was substantially increased when you had the Presidency and the House and the Senate, very substantially, as you know, at twice the rate it was increased during the Clinton administration. We also believe that we are sure that many citizens have some very useful suggestions. I would also urge them to make their suggestions to the commission which the President has appointed to get a handle on not 16/100 of spending but on the real dollars that confront us and which the American public are very concerned about. The commission that the President appointed is to look at how we can bring spending down, how we can address the deficit, and how we can get back to the place where we were at the end of 2000, at the end of the Clinton administration when we had a $5.6 trillion surplus. Unfortunately, that surplus was turned into this administration inheriting about a $5 trillion deficit while your party was in total control of the House, the Senate, and the administration. But we certainly look forward to the suggestions that you have or anybody has in the public as to how we can bring spending under control. Your party has talked a lot about earmarks. As the gentleman well knows, in 1994 there were some 4,000 earmarks between our 50 States and 435 districts. That was escalated under Republicans to 15,000-- quadrupled the number of earmarks. Now the gentleman is against earmarks, at least wants a suspension of those. We think that that is, perhaps, progress. But I want to tell the gentleman that we hope you will cooperate with us in the findings of the commission. You have three very outstanding Members that have been appointed from this House. Hopefully they will make substantive suggestions to get the budget deficit under control as was done in the 1990s when, for the first time in your lifetime and in mine--and I have a lot more lifetime to tout than you do--we had a balanced budget for 4 years in a row. That's never happened in your lifetime or in mine other than during the Clinton administration. That was important. Unfortunately, in the following decade that we have just been through, again the deficit was exploded. But certainly any efforts to get suggestions from anybody, including the American public, of how they think that we can reduce spending, bring the deficit under control, is welcome, and we look forward to hearing suggestions. But I want to say that while some of the programs you have mentioned, I have one of those programs being a $200,000 program. You say it's a $1 million program. In either event, it's certainly worth looking at to see whether it has value to invest dollars in. But you and I both know that in a $3.56 trillion budget deficit that we have to look at the big numbers where we're spending money and what policies we have adopted in order to get to where I think all of us want to be, and that's back to where we were in fiscal year 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. I yield.

Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. HOYER

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that it may be in order at any time on Thursday, May 20, 2010, for the Speaker to declare a recess, subject to the call of the Chair, for the purpose of receiving in joint meeting His Excellency Felipe Calderon Hinojosa, President of the United Mexican States. The Speaker pro Tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Maryland?