Permitting Continued Financing Of Government Operations

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.

A little over a year ago, Mr. Boehner and I spoke on a bill that I said would be noted as a day of consequence in the House of Representatives. That bill was to, at the request of President Bush and Secretary Paulson and Ben Bernanke, give some $700 billion to the Treasury to try to stabilize the financial sector of our economy. Mr. Boehner voted for that. My friend, Mr. Blunt, voted for that. I believe Mr. Cantor voted for that. Others of you voted for that. And many on our side voted for that bill. It failed.

And we came back here a few days later, on Friday, and that bill was called up again. It was called up again because we knew that there really wasn't an option. Mr. Bernanke, President Bush's appointee as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, said that we were at risk of going into a depression if we did not vote for that bill. Nobody wanted to vote for that bill on either side of the aisle. That was a bill that we ultimately concluded on that Friday, approximately half of the Republican side of the aisle, a little more than half on my side of the aisle, was a bill that we needed to pass to avoid the risk of depression.

Since that time, over the next 4 months, we saw an erosion in the economy, not a depression, but the worst recession we had seen in 8 years. Now I have a speech here that we've prepared. I'm not going to give it because it, to some degree, points the finger at one another. And I agree with Mr. Boehner. There's blame to go around. We have been concerned about cutting revenues and increasing spending during the first part of this decade. You have been concerned about the spending that we believed was necessary to make to try to create jobs and bring our economy back.

Mr. Boehner and I disagree on the impact of the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Since its passage, the stock market has gone from 6,500 to 10,500. Anybody who opens up their 401(k) or Keogh or Thrift Savings Plan believes that we've made progress on that because their value has gone up about 60 percent. That's progress, but not success. We want to get back to where it was in terms of the value of those plans.

In addition, in the last month of the Bush administration, we lost 741,000 jobs, after adopting a policy that many believed, on your side of the aisle, would lift our economy. And, in fact, it did for a while. But it did not create the kind of jobs you wanted. And, in fact, on average, over the 8 years of the Bush administration, it produced approximately 4,200 jobs per month, on average, in comparison with the 216,000 jobs, on average, per month that the Clinton administration saw during its term.

So we could point fingers, but that would not be particularly useful. I have listened to this debate, and I am chagrined. And I want to plead guilty, because I've demagogued this issue as well. We had a quote presented about the morality of incurring debt. It was taken a little out of context, but we all say things that we look back on. And I voted against increasing the debt. It was a demagoguing vote. I voted four times against raising the debt. It was a demagoguing vote. I want to admit that and tell people. Why? Because I didn't believe then, nor do I believe now, that not paying America's bills is an option that Americans expect of us. Americans expect us to pay our bills. Some Americans would like us not to incur some bills for war, but if we do incur bills for war, they would like us to pay for it. Some Americans would not like us to incur bills for nutritional programs or education or whatever else may be, too much, too little, but if we do incur those bills, Americans expect us to pay the bill.

I have a list here of everybody who spoke who was here who voted to increase the debt limit four times during the time that you were in charge of the House and of the Presidency. And we didn't support it. My suspicion is that we will find ourselves in the same place today. You all are not responsible for the running of the government or the passing of policy. We are. I understand that. And so my presumption is, perhaps, to a person, as we did on this side of the aisle, you will vote against this bill.

And so I say to my friends on this side of the aisle, the American people have given us a responsibility. The American people have reposed in us a trust. And this year, in meeting that confidence and trust, we have taken some very tough votes. One of the things I said that was quoted that was immoral, that's the quote you used, and if you take out the whole quote, which a lot of times none of us do, we take the part of the quote that we like, I said that not to pay for what we buy, and to jettison PAYGO, was not right.

One of the reasons that we find ourselves in this position is because we haven't adopted a statutory PAYGO, and we should adopt statutory PAYGO. I understand my friends on this side of the aisle are not clapping. And the reason you're not clapping is because you believe, correctly, that that will constrain you in effecting tax cuts, because you believe that cutting taxes does not create debt.

The tragedy is, during the 8 years President Bush was President and you were in charge--because we couldn't pass any economic policy past President Bush's budget veto--you incurred $2 trillion of debt as you cut revenues and increased spending at a greater rate than was increased under the Clinton administration, and you were in charge of everything. But Mr. Boehner is correct, my grandchildren and his don't care whether you did it, we did it, or we did it together.

But my colleagues on this side of the aisle, if we take seriously that oath to protect and preserve this Nation, there is no one on either side of the aisle, Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, who will rationalize that America's not paying its debt is a good policy, because all of us know it is a disastrous policy and that the consequences of not passing this bill, in the stock market, globally with our creditors, and, yes, with Mom and Pop running that store in my town and your town, will be very substantial and unacceptable.

So we come, as I said on the TARP vote, to a day of consequences. Not every day is a day of consequence in this House, the people's House. We vote on suspension bills and post offices and this, that, and the other. And even the bills that we'll consider next, we'll send it to the Senate or we won't send it to the Senate, and the world will little note nor long remember, as Abraham Lincoln said. But if America and its duly elected Representatives say to the rest of the world, We will not pay our bills, that will be of consequence.

It is not about pointing fingers. It is about taking responsibility. It is about showing courage to do what all of us know. Whatever the rhetoric on this floor has been today, what all of us know is the only option for a responsible country, for a country that is perceived around the world as the wealthiest country on the face of the Earth, and for us to say this day, We will not pay our bills, that the consequences in January to the person who receives Social Security, the consequences to the Defense Department--not that they won't pay their bills. They're going to have to under the emergency clause. But the fact of the matter is, my friends, this is absolutely essential to do.

Therefore, on my side of the aisle, I ask us to do it. And don't point fingers at their side if they don't do it, because we didn't do it. And very frankly, my friends, we have to stop that. We have to stop it for whoever is in charge, because Americans expect better of us.

I ask you, therefore, as we consider this, we ought to vote on it not because we agreed with policy A or policy B or tax cut Y or tax increase Z, but because we know--and I tell my young friend who spoke on the floor about fiscal responsibility who is here for the first time--as we debate these issues on spending and cutting, that they are legitimate to debate, discuss, and vote however one believes is necessary.

But in the final analysis, when the roll is called as to whether America will be a responsible debtor, whether we incurred that debt as a result of decreasing taxes, which we did, or increased spending, which we have, it matters not. What matters is that America pays its bills. Vote for this bill.

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