Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the Republican whip and I have been discussing where we are and to bring Members up to speed on what status we have for today and the next few days.

Mr. Speaker, as everybody in the House knows, and America knows, as of midnight tonight, the government will run out of authority to operate and run out of funds, authorization, to be spent. As a result, everybody is working very, very hard on both sides, the Senate and the House, to try to come to agreement not only with respect to funding of the government, but also with respect to the response to COVID-19 and the pandemic that afflicts our people and has afflicted our economy in a very negative way. So we are trying to get to an agreement, trying to get paper done.

Mr. Speaker, I have told the Republican whip that we intend to ask for a recess until 5 o'clock this afternoon, which would give us 3 more hours to work on both the discussions. And I just got off the phone with the Speaker, who just got off the phone with Senator McConnell, and so we are hoping that, in the next 3 hours, we will have a clearer picture of where we are.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.

For the general Membership, I would urge them, however, to keep tonight free, tomorrow free, Sunday free, and such days thereafter as we may need--and I hope we do not need any of those days--so that we can, A, pass funding for the balance of the fiscal year until September 30 of next year, and that we can give the kind of relief that, frankly, Mr. Scalise and I have been talking about for the last 3 weeks, for small businesses, people on unemployment insurance, people who are having trouble putting food on their table, transportation systems that are about to shut down, and other relief that both sides are trying to come to an agreement on.

Mr. Speaker, I urge every Member to keep their schedule free, essentially, for such days as it takes to accomplish those two objectives.

Unless the gentleman wants to say something further, I yield back the balance of my time.

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