Concurrent Resolution on the Budget for Fiscal Year 2021

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Roy is walking off the floor, but I am one of those Members that has sympathy for his frustration. I have sympathy for his frustration because I have served here for a long time when we did things in a bipartisan, regular order way.

But I hope the gentleman shared the same frustration when we passed a tax bill that did $2 trillion, at a time when the economy didn't need a tax cut and the people who got the tax cut clearly did not need it. And I had the same frustration the gentleman has expressed.

As the gentleman who chairs the committee pointed out, this is the first step, however, in giving instructions on what committees ought to do, and doesn't tell them exactly how to do it. Next week is going to be an entire committee week in which 12 committees will consider how to achieve the objectives set forth in the budget resolution. But I do share, and we ought all share that we don't act in the bipartisan fashion in which we ought to.

The President met with 10 Republican Senators. They are pretty far apart. I am going to speak a little bit about the substance of this, but I want to assure the gentleman that I am a big supporter of regular order. I think we ought to pass all 12 appropriations bills and not do these omnibus bills that nobody knows what is in them: not you, not me. I am the majority leader. You think, well, he knows all that is in there. I don't. Why? Because they are so massive that you really don't have an opportunity and we don't debate them fully. So I want to say that I share the frustration.

On this, I think we need to move quickly, and I am going say why in the comments that I make. But I didn't want the gentleman to go off the floor thinking that everybody was simply dismissing, not so much the substance, but the frustration he feels, I feel, and I think so many of our Members feel about the process being either too quick or too slow, too comprehensive, too incomprehensible. So I just wanted to say that to the gentleman.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, we have passed four major pieces of legislation. They weren't partisan pieces of legislation. They weren't rushed through by Democrats and, in fact, a Republican President had to sign all four of those bills. The first one, an $8.3 billion bill, four times what the President asked for, but ultimately, he said, yes, we need that much, and that was way, way, way too little. But we thought it was a huge sum of money at that point in time. It passed 415-2.

On March 14, we passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, 363-40.

On March 27, just a few days--this is all within weeks of one another, we passed the CARES Act, about $2 trillion, voice vote, $2 trillion, about the same amount as this bill suggests. Frankly, since that time, we have had hundreds of thousands of Americans die from COVID, and our economy go up and down, but now it is tanking, and we are all concerned about that.

George Bush came to the House when I was majority leader the first time and said, we need $700 billion, actually, a little more than that, $700 billion to loan to big banks. Loan to big banks? And Ben Bernanke, then the chair of the Federal Reserve said, if you don't do it, we are going to go into a depression.

So what happened, Mr. Speaker, was Democrats carried that bill for George Bush, a Republican President, and Republicans gave him one-third of their votes, their President--he was our President, but theirs in the sense he was a Republican.

So I am a little frustrated when I hear, well, we can't do this because we passed the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, very controversial, a big bill, 388-5. Now, what does that tell you? What does it tell the American people? That there was a consensus that it is a crisis in America that there is no example for it in the past. And so we need to move.

We had an election. The President of the United States said we had to move, and we passed a $900-plus billion bill, and the President said, by the way, it wasn't enough. He wanted to see more. He wanted to see substantially more in payments to the American people because they were struggling.

So, Mr. Speaker, this is a continuation of what has, throughout the year--we are not yet at the year, the first year of COVID, and so far, we have dealt with it in a bipartisan way, and robustly, because of the magnitude of the challenge.

People are suffering from the most severe public health emergency in our lifetimes and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, and they are looking to Washington for help.

After we enacted, Mr. Speaker, the CARES Act in March 2020 to get American workers, businesses, and communities through the spring and summer months, the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Senate hit the pause button.

We passed the Heroes Act May 15. We then waited and waited and tried to negotiate. Mr. McConnell said, no, let the States go bankrupt. And Mr. McCarthy said, let's see what happens. And tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people died, and the economy has regressed.

That pause crippled our Nation's response, both to the public health emergency and the economic one as supports authorized by the CARES Act faded.

While we were finally able to reach bipartisan agreement on COVID-19 relief at the end of December, December 16, to be exact, much damage had been done and we knew, we knew, we all knew that the December legislation would not be enough, Mr. Speaker, and that we would have to act again. Now we are doing so.

Now, very frankly, when we were at the greatest recession, not depression, in December of 2007, and then 2008, and then when we took over and could act on a relief bill, we passed a $787 billion bill, relatively small by the kinds of sums we are talking about now, and it saved us from depression, and not a single Republican in the House of Representatives voted for that.

Now, remember, 172 Democrats voted for George W. Bush's TARP legislation. Not a single Republican stepped in to help the American economy, not one. So when I hear about bipartisanship, I think to myself, gee, I am for bipartisanship, and we will all be for it. And I will tell you, the proof of the pudding is those 172 votes that voted for TARP; and without TARP, I think the country would have gone into depression.

Now, President Biden has outlined the next steps we need to take as part of the American Rescue Plan. The budget resolution before us today provides us with one path to put that plan into action with the next round of major relief for our people.

The gentleman from Texas lamented, well, this is a farce. Let me tell you, if this farce passes, millions of families are going to get thousands of dollars to support themselves and buy food and pay their mortgage and pay their rent. This is very real.

Now, this is not the only path. Let me be clear, Mr. Speaker, we want this to be a bipartisan endeavor. Joe Biden's entire career, which is an extensive career, shows his bipartisanship, and I hope the discussions between the President and a small group of Senate Republicans will lead to a responsible and actionable bipartisan compromise that can pass the Senate with 60 votes and get to the President's desk in the coming weeks.

But make no mistake; we will not seek compromise at the expense of necessary action. The American people cannot wait for Republicans to work their way through another pause.

Democrats are taking this step today to ensure that we have all the procedural tools necessary to move forward with the relief so sorely needed for the American people in case the preferred path of bipartisanship is unsuccessful, particularly because expanded unemployment benefits expire on March 14.

So, Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me, to join the chairman in a bipartisan way in voting for this resolution so we can assure the American people that Congress is moving forward with the relief they need and in the timely manner they ought to expect.

If we care about American families, if we care about children who are going hungry, if we care about renters who can't pay rent and landlords who need that rent to pay their bills--now, some of them may be giants, but most of them are small--this bill cannot wait. This bill needs to pass as soon as we can possibly pass it.

I urge all my colleagues, vote for this resolution, and let's take a first, critically important step to passing this bill that will be constructed by 12 different committees here, committees in the Senate, and put together, as the chairman has just pointed out, and we will have to vote on it again as a final product, for the people.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source