Legislative Program

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I ask to address the House for one minute for the purpose of inquiring about next week's schedule.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader, for information about the schedule for next week.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the distinguished whip for yielding.

On Monday, the House is not in session. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 12:30 for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business, with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, no votes are expected.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, including several important public health bills, H.R. 2464, the Wakefield Act, and H.R. 1237, the Cytology Proficiency Improvement Act. The final list of bills under suspension of the rules will be announced by the close of business tomorrow.

In addition, we will consider H.R. 2016, the National Landscape Conservation System Act, and H.R. 2537, a bill to amend the Federal Water Pollution Control Act relating to beach monitoring.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that.

I have a couple of questions on things that we haven't discussed. First of all, the supplemental budget, I know General Petraeus is in Washington next week, and I believe Ambassador Crocker. The President sent up a supplemental request in February of last year. By approximately June of this year we're told that the Army will run out of money, and that by July, their ability to use transfer authority will be exhausted. I wonder at what point, in conjunction with or following the Petraeus visits next week, does the leader think we will be talking about that supplemental request.

And I yield.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

It's our expectation that, following the testimony of General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker, the committees will be meeting to not only discuss substantive policy, but also to discuss the supplemental appropriation bill. It would be my expectation that that bill would be on the floor either the end of April or the first week in May. We are cognizant, as the gentleman indicated, of the June period, and so we want to move this significantly before that debate so that there will not be any lag.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that. I think that date is important, and we need to be sure and be aware of it as we move through this process, as you are.

The spending bill, I know as this administration comes to an end, I'm confident that the White House has had lots of requests from the administration side for additional spending, which I believe they have held the line on. Does the gentleman have a sense of whether this bill will be able to be contained to the defense supplemental, or will it possibly get bigger than that?

And I would yield.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Well, there are obviously needs in addition to Iraq that are being discussed, and I would tell my friend that those discussions are ongoing. A decision on what may or may not be added in addition to the supplemental that may be necessary for Iraq, there may be other things, that decision has not been made at this point in time. But I do want to let the gentleman know that that is under discussion.

As the gentleman will recall, last year, when we passed the supplemental, there were domestic priorities that were also addressed, in particular, Katrina, as the gentleman will recall, and some other matters as well. So, that's under discussion.

Mr. BLUNT. Well, I do appreciate that. And I just say for my friend's information that we've certainly discouraged the White House, we're hoping, not only discouraged them from moving forward with any new additions, and I think they have decided not to do that and will be concerned about this going as quickly as possible and meeting these defense needs rather than being tied down.

Another topic is housing. On the other side of the building they've been talking about housing this week. I know that Chairman Frank has some proposals on housing. I really have two questions there: One, when do you anticipate some housing legislation on the floor? And two would be, do you expect that that housing legislation will follow the PAYGO rules of this Congress, or will those rules be suspended for that housing discussion?

And I would yield.

Mr. HOYER. As you know, we are strong proponents of the PAYGO rule and have adhered to that in all but one instance last year. We did not adhere to it, as you know, with the stimulus package. There was concern, and obviously we didn't want to stimulate and depress at the same point in time, so that was under discussion. But I will tell you on the housing bill itself, Mr. Frank has been working on that with his committee, Maxine Waters and others, and with Mr. Bachus and others on the committee. And we would certainly hope to move a housing bill in the near term, certainly no later than the latter part of this month or the very first days of the next month, so that we can pass a bill that would give relief to those who have either been foreclosed upon or are on the brink of foreclosure. We believe that it is essential for us to try to address what is a national problem and a very serious one. And so, that will also go into the consideration, I think, of how much money is needed, how that will be paid for.

Mr. BLUNT. I think in that time frame there is a chance there will be some administrative actions taken as well, and that may be an important part of that debate.

I do know that this week Mr. Bernanke testified before the Joint Economic Committee, and part of his testimony was that he thought that this would be the wrong time for any tax increases. And I would hope we could maintain some openness on that PAYGO discussion as it relates to this housing concern that people are facing.

I would yield.

Mr. HOYER. Thank you very much for yielding.

I will say that over the last 7 years, the President has told us things are pretty good. There was never a right time for revenues to be increased. Even in the times when the President was telling us the economy was robust, we were growing, we still weren't paying our bills.

We feel very strongly on this side of the aisle, and Mr. Bernanke, in a telephone conversation with me, said one of the things we didn't want to do, when you and I and Mr. Boehner and Ms. Pelosi were talking about the stimulus package, one thing we did not want to do is exacerbate the long-term debt that confronts us. Mr. Bernanke is very concerned about that. But certainly in the context of wanting to move quickly in an emergency way where we have an economy now that Mr. Bernanke, although he didn't say it was a recession, he certainly gave the implication that we were on the brink of that, we're very concerned about the economic policies, very frankly, that we think have led to that.

But I will say that we have two concerns: Number one, paying for what we buy, not exacerbating the

deficit. But clearly we're concerned about getting relief to people that need it in the short term. But my discussions with Mr. Bernanke were, yes, tax increases in the short term he thought were not helpful, but he wanted to make it very clear that he thought making the debt worse over the long term, whether it's for international expenses or domestic expenses, was not helpful to the economy in the long term.

I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. BLUNT. Well, I wouldn't quarrel with the gentleman about not having a good time for tax increases since '01 and '03, but revenue actually has increased during that period of time. I think in '05, '06 and '07 we may have set records of increased revenues, percentage over last year. So, you used the term revenue, and I think you meant taxes, because we did see some revenue increases during that time, and they were significant. I think over 14 percent in FY05, and double digits in the next 2 years.

I would yield.

Mr. HOYER. I won't debate that now, but I would be interested in discussing it at some point in time because, as you know, in those years revenues fell short of the administration's projections in the previous years. So that, although revenues did increase, you're absolutely correct, as revenues have every year over the last 50 except for 2, they increased less than the administration had projected.

Mr. BLUNT. Well, while we don't want to enter into this debate too fully, on the projections, even though we still had deficits in those years, which I regret for a number of reasons, those deficits were always less at the end of the year than we had thought they were going to be at the beginning of the year because revenues exceeded projections. That's why the deficit was less.

The third topic, I think my last topic today, is, we're at a point in the congressional calendar where it's at least possible that, under the TPA, the Trade Promotion Authority rules, the President will send the Colombia Trade Agreement up because of the number of days left that under TPA would require a vote during the calendar we've put in place. And I wonder if the gentleman has a sense of whether the Colombia Trade Agreement process will go through the normal Trade Promotion Authority process, or if that process could possibly be shut off.

And I would yield.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for the question.

We all agree this is an important agreement, but as you know, there are still major long-standing issues to be resolved, violence being one of them, labor rights being another, trade adjustment assistance, which the gentleman referred to, as another. If the White House does choose to send up the agreement, we will discuss the full range of options available to us under the TPA and the House rules.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman, and I yield back.

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