Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.

I am pleased to hear that he is going to be sticking with the level of funding that we agreed upon. I think the gentleman's observation is correct: there are many people on my side who believe that is lower than is necessary to meet the responsibilities they would like to see met, and on your side it's too much in terms of the fiscal situation that confronts us; but I am pleased to hear that we're going to be consistent with the 1.043 discretionary number that was set forth in the Budget Control Act.

My friend knows that, in the Budget Control Act, we also provided for some headroom for emergency spending as a result of disasters. The gentleman well knows our region in the Northeast was hit very hard by a hurricane. We've had an earthquake. We've had tornadoes and other natural disasters. That gave $11 billion of headroom.

Will we continue to honor that part of the agreement as well?

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Mr. CANTOR. As I said earlier to the gentleman, our intention is to operate and abide by the terms of the Budget Control Act.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that.

I was profoundly disappointed that the so-called supercommittee, or the special committee on deficit reduction, either was unable to reach an agreement on at least a $4 trillion agreement to reduce our deficit or, as I had urged individually, to extend its life for a period of time, 60 to 90 days, which would have allowed us further opportunity to reach such a deal.

I think that it is absolutely essential for our country. I think it would be an extraordinary plus for our economy if we were to reach such an agreement. I think it would raise the confidence of the American people and raise the confidence of the international community and, not inconsequentially, that of the rating agencies as well. We didn't reach an agreement. We didn't extend the life of that commission. I would like to see us set up another process which would give us accelerated consideration of such an agreement.

Having said that, we built into the Budget Control Act a disciplinary consequence of that failure, which was the sequester--a $1.2 trillion across-the-board cut, divided equally between defense and non-defense discretionary spending. The Speaker had said that we are morally bound to accept the defense cuts if the supercommittee failed.

I wonder if you support the Speaker in that commitment.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I appreciate Mr. Panetta's quote. I believe Mr. Panetta's quote is an accurate quote and, I believe, substantively correct.

Let me give the gentleman another quote from the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Michael Mullen. I know the gentleman knows Admiral Mullen, who served so ably as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

He said, ``The most significant threat to our national security is our debt.''

He went on to say, ``And the reason I say that is because the ability for our country to resource our military--and I have a pretty good feeling and understanding about what our national security requirements are--is going to be directly proportional--over time, not next year or the year after, but over time--to help our economy.''

So I would agree with the gentleman that we need to reach a bipartisan agreement. I would hope the gentleman would share my view that we need to reach a bipartisan agreement on a big deal. A little deal, as the Speaker and I have discussed, will simply push off until next year a decision and the year after in just doing it incrementally. That will not give confidence to the markets. It will not give confidence to the business community. It will not help our economy either domestically or internationally.

So my concern, I tell my friend, is if we now walk away from the sequester, as we have walked away from too many agreements in the past, we will again remove the discipline, remove the incentive, remove the imperative, as the gentleman points out, for coming to a bipartisan agreement, which is Bowles-Simpson, Rivlin-Domenici, the Gang of Six.

As the 100, the 40 Republicans and 60 Democrats, as the 46 equally divided between Republicans and Democrats have said, we need to reach a balanced deal: a deal which will restrain and cut spending, a deal that will deal with entitlement sustainability over time, and a deal that will provide a revenue stream that will allow us to fund what we believe to be absolutely essential, of which, as the gentleman points out, and he and I agree, national security is one.

So I would hope that we would not walk away from that disciplinary incentive to, in fact, have Republicans and Democrats come to an agreement.

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comments.

I think that both sides have shown some flexibility in some respects. Certainly a number of Republicans and Democrats showed flexibility on the Bowles-Simpson Commission.

Now, none of the House Members on the Republican side showed that flexibility, for reasons that I've heard them articulate. I understand they had reasons. But, unfortunately, we didn't get to the 14 votes in a bipartisan way on the Commission. As you know, I was not on the Commission, but I supported the Commission's report, would have voted for the Commission's report, as did Mr. Durbin, the majority whip in the Senate.

Let me say to the gentleman, with respect to small business, nobody wants to put taxes on small business. As a matter of fact, we want to reduce taxes for small business. We offered that on the floor in the United States Senate yesterday. Every Democrat but one voted for that yesterday. Unfortunately, it did not pass. Your side, as you know, offered an alternative, an alternative which didn't even enjoy the support of the majority of your party.

So we need to get to bipartisan support, but I wish the gentleman would, when we talk about trying to ask some of the wealthiest people in America to pay a little more--not a lot more, but a little more--to meet the obligations so our country is fiscally sound, would not keep putting forth this, what I believe to be, windmill of small business.

We are for small business. This tax cut would reduce substantially taxes on small business. Your party, the majority, voted against it in the United States Senate. It hasn't been brought to the floor.

We would hope that we would extend the tax cut for middle class working people and not restore that tax, and that that would affect both individuals and, as the gentleman knows, small business. So we have a tax cut that we're recommending. The President has gone all over the country and talked about it, but it hasn't been brought to the floor. We think that's regrettable. We would hope you would do that.

Furthermore, frankly, the millionaires' tax, the billionaires' tax is, as you know, a net taxable income level. It's not going to hurt small business at all. It's not going to hurt job creators at all. And, very frankly, I will tell my friend, we continue to follow an agenda which I don't think you can quote me an economist that will tell me that your regulatory bills that we've been spending time on, day after day, week after week--which I know sounds good to your people. We need regulatory reform. We need regulatory simplification. We need to make it in America. One of the ways we need to do so is make it profitable to make it in America. I agree with that 100 percent. But I don't have any economist who has told me that that's going to create jobs. As a matter of fact, Bruce Bartlett, an economist for the Reagan administration and Bush administration, said specifically it will have little, if any, effect.

Do you have an economist who said that that's going to grow jobs?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comment. I take from his comment, however, that he doesn't have an economist who has said that these bills are going to grow jobs. I agree with him that economists certainly believe that over the long term certainty is a good thing. We all agree on that. I hope all of us agree on that, and I would like to accomplish that. That's one of the reasons I'm for a big deal.

But let me give you a quote from Ben Bernanke as it relates to your saying we want to raise taxes. Nobody wants to raise taxes. I will tell my friends, I've been in office now for a long period of time, some 40-plus years. It takes zero courage, zero courage, to spend money and not pay for it. We believe we ought to pay for things. That's the difference.

Taxes are the money we collect to pay for things: taxes that we collect to pay for our national security, taxes we collect to pay for researchers at NIH, taxes we pay for FBI agents to protect us from terrorists, both domestic and foreign. Those are what our taxes are. Taxes are to help our kids get a college education so we can be competitive in the international community. It's paying for things that we're for.

And I will tell my friend, I'm glad to see you come to the point where we're going to pay for things because very frankly, as the gentleman knows, we're collecting revenues at a far lesser rate than your budget asked to spend, than your budget, the Ryan budget, which, as you well know, did not balance the budget within the next 20 years and was all on the cut side, and the gentleman well knows was not a viable document. It did pass the House of Representatives; it did. I'm not sure it would have passed the Senate even if the Republicans had been in control of the Senate.

But notwithstanding that, let me give you a quote from Ben Bernanke because I agree with you--and you and I have talked about this privately, and we're now talking about it publicly. We ought to come together. We ought to sit down. We ought to reason together. We ought to be courageous together. We ought to have the will to address the extraordinarily dangerous fiscal crisis that confronts us.

Ben Bernanke said this: We aim to push our elected leaders to face the Nation's long-term fiscal challenges with civility, honesty, and a willingness to sacrifice their own reelection. This means not kicking the can anymore. That's why, if we abandon the sequester, that will be kicking the can. If we abandon trying to get a big deal, that will be kicking the can. This means--as he said--means reaching a deal on debt, revenue, and spending long before the deadline arrives this fall. Well, it came and it went and we failed. It means considering all options from entitlement programs, and the gentleman knows I've given a number of speeches on having to deal with the entitlement programs. We need to do that, but we also need to deal with taxes and revenues so we pay for what we buy, and we ought to tell the American people we can't buy that if you don't want to pay for it.

Now, very frankly, I think in the short term, given the economic crisis, lack of jobs, and the struggling economy, raising additional revenues in that timeframe, as Bowles-Simpson and Domenici-Rivlin both said, is not good policy, and they would not propose that, and it has not been proposed, as the gentleman knows. But I would tell my friend that paying for things--and as the gentleman knows, one of the reasons we've gotten into this problem was we didn't pay for things in the last decade. We have bought a lot of stuff, and we didn't pay for it. We asked our children to pay for it because it's a delayed effect.

We didn't pay for the wars, and we didn't pay for the prescription bill, and we didn't pay for the tax cuts. Simply giving up revenue, voting for tax cuts, and continuing to buy things is, frankly, I think not only not courageous but it is a disservice to this generation and generations yet to come

And I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comment, and I agree with it. Some progress is progress, however you describe it.

Let me clarify, because I want to make sure in terms of coming together and reaching some progress; you mentioned the--I'm not sure that every Republican agreed to it, maybe the gentleman knows, but there was--Mr. Toomey put a proposal on the table which offered $300 billion in additional revenues. Of course, that was offset by an $800 billion increase next year in tax cuts or a net reduction of $500 billion in revenues for next year, excuse me, for January 2013.

Let me ask the gentleman, in reaching that, the gentleman mentioned entitlements. I agreed with him on entitlements, but the gentleman then said he's not for any increased revenues. All three of the bipartisan commissions, the two commissions and the Gang of Six, all three have said that revenues must be part of that picture. That's taxes--a fancy word for taxes. Does the gentleman agree with that, because that certainly was the basis for bipartisanship in all of three of those fora?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. I didn't get an answer to my question, however. He's gotten an answer to his ``solve the problem'' issue. And what he means by solving the problem is we have to deal with the sustainability of entitlement programs. I've adopted that premise myself in speeches that I've given on numerous occasions on this floor and in other fora around the country.

What I'm asking him is, does he also agree--that proposition was adopted by all three of the fora that we have discussed--does he also agree, as Mr. Bernanke points out, that revenues, or taxes, however you want to call it, resources to pay for what we believe are priorities--for instance, the gentleman correctly believes we need to invest in our national security. I feel very strongly about that.

For 30 years I have voted on behalf of the national security of this Nation--to pay for it and to pursue weapons systems, personnel levels, strategies to assure our national security. So I have no qualms with saying that is a priority. If it is a priority, if it is important, it is important to pay for it. Paying for it is through revenues. If we don't pay for it, if we borrow--we're going to borrow over a trillion dollars to protect our country in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places around the world, but particularly those two. That's important. That's important to do. He and I agree. But I think it's important to pay for it and not have my children and grandchildren pay for it, who are going to have to pay for their security in their time. And if we leave them only a legacy of deep debt, they will not be able to do so. That is an immoral policy, in my opinion, as well as a fiscally irresponsible policy.

So I ask my friend, I understand we've got to fix the problem. What you're talking about is make sustainable demographics of change, costs of change. We have to make sustainable entitlements. But does the gentleman agree that a component of the solution has to be dealing with revenues as well?

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comments.

We ought to come together on jobs. I would urge the gentleman to bring the President's jobs bill to the floor with such amendments, such changes, such improvements, such deletions as the gentleman feels necessary.

The President put out a jobs bill which every economist has said will grow the economy, will grow jobs; and it has been languishing in this House since September while people are losing jobs.

Now, the good news is we had some improvement in the economy. By the way, the Recovery Act worked, as the gentleman knows. I want to comment on his going into deficits as a result of the Recovery Act. As the gentleman knows--and he voted for--George Bush suggested $700 billion in unpaid spending to staunch the financial crisis brought on by the meltdown on Wall Street in September of 2008, when President Bush was President. He offered a bill. He didn't offer to pay for that. And we didn't pay for it.

You and I both voted for it because we thought it was the responsible thing to do to stabilize the financial structure of this country. I believed we were absolutely right at that point in time. It was a very unpopular bill but, nevertheless, I think absolutely essential.

So in terms of some 5 months later, confronted with the deepest economic crisis since Herbert Hoover, we acted. We acted with the Recovery Act. And the Recovery Act has worked. It was not as big as some asked it to be, but it created some 2 million jobs over the last 36 months. It has not been as robust because we lost 8 million jobs. So if you add 3 million back, you lose 8 million, you haven't gotten to where you need to be.

But I tell my friend that we ought to come together. We ought to reach agreement. We ought to reach a balanced agreement. Your side thinks when we talk about balance, we're talking about revenues. He's right. But when we talk about balance, we're also talking about fixing the problem the gentleman talks about. We're talking about a balanced deal.

I would urge my friend in these coming few days that we have left, where we're apparently going to do either a CR or an omnibus appropriation bill--and we were criticized greatly for not doing every appropriation bill individually. You have an appropriation bill, as the gentleman knows, that hasn't even passed subcommittee much less full committee or the floor of the House. But we need to get those bills done because it will give certainty and confidence to the American people that we can work together. I'm hopeful that over the next few days that we can, in fact, do that.

I would urge my friend to let us keep the discipline of the sequester in everybody's mind because we don't want that alternative. But we want to have that as the alternative to people so that we can give incentives to work together to summon the courage, to summon the judgment to reach an agreement which will get our country on the right track and give our citizens the confidence in their government that we wish they would have.

But they will only have it if we do, as the gentleman suggests, come together and work constructively toward a balanced package not only in terms of a fiscal package, but appropriations.

Let me say as well on appropriations, this side of the aisle did what your side of the aisle didn't do over the last 4 years when we were in charge. We made sure those bills passed. Your bills had your levels that we agreed on. And we congratulate you on sticking with the agreement we reached. I will tell my friend we will do so again if you do not put in the riders that Mr. Boehner and your Pledge to America said ought not to be in must-pass bills.

You will recall, I'm sure, that Mr. Boehner said we ought not to have extraneous controversial items which are not germane in bills that must pass. We ought to consider those on their merits. And I will tell my friend that if you do that, as the whip, as I have done on the two CRs we passed, on the debt limit extension we passed, and on the omnibus, or the ``minibus'' that we just passed, I will help you get those through. We will work together, and America will have greater confidence in us if we do that.

I yield to my friend.

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