Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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

I would ask him a couple of questions about bills that are not on the announcement. The gentleman and I had a colloquy last week about student loans, that there's no action on those on the calendar for next week, if I'm correct.

Knowing, as we know, that student loan rates will double in July from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent, and in light of our discussion last week, can the gentleman tell me whether there is any thought that there will be some action taken by us prior to the July 4 break?

I yield to my friend.

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

Very frankly, I wasn't going to mention what happened on the floor today, but the gentleman has brought it up.

The gentleman is correct; the committee passed out a bipartisan bill. A lot of Democrats voted for that bill. The problem, of course, is that 62 Republicans voted against the bill as it was amended, notwithstanding the fact they voted for the last amendment that was adopted, which we think was a draconian amendment that would have hurt the poorest citizens in our country very badly.

So we turned a bipartisan bill into a partisan bill. I will tell my friend, very frankly, you did the same thing--not you personally, but your side of the aisle did the same thing with respect to the Homeland Security bill, which was reported out on a voice vote from the Appropriations Committee, that we would have voted for on a bipartisan basis, except an amendment was adopted with your side voting overwhelmingly for it, knowing full well that our side could not support that.

So I tell you, with all due respect, Mr. Majority Leader, I wasn't going to bring up what happened today. But what happened today is you turned a bipartisan bill--necessary for our farmers, necessary for our consumers, necessary for the people of America--that many of us would have supported and you turned it into a partisan bill.

Very frankly, 58 of the 62 Republicans who voted against your bill voted for the last amendment, which made the bill even more egregious--we disagreed with the $20 billion cut. And you upped the--not you personally, but your side upped the ante.

So I will tell you, my friend, we're prepared to work in a bipartisan fashion. Very frankly, with respect to the student loan bill, it was very close to the President's bill. And we would have supported it had it been even closer to the President's bill.

What your bill does, as you know, puts those taking out a student loan at risk of having their interest rates substantially increased in the future. The President suggested, yes, let's get a variable rate that reflects market rates, but then when you take out the loan, just like you do with your house loan, you know what your interest rate is going to be. So we have a difference on that. I think it's a good faith disagreement on that.

But I will say to you that, yes, I have been concerned about the inability to take a bill reported out of the committee that is bipartisan in nature and not turn it into a partisan bill. That's what happened on this floor today. It was unfortunate, as I say, for farmers; it was unfortunate for consumers; and it was unfortunate for our country.

If the gentleman wants to pursue that, I will yield to him.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. We clearly have a profound disagreement.

When we were in the majority, we got no help on your side, Mr. Majority Leader--you remember that, zero, one, two, three, four--on programs that we felt very strongly about. There was no opportunity to have bipartisan dialogue. There was no opportunity to have bipartisan agreement.

The gentleman refers to regular order. Very frankly, the person who talks about regular order most is your Speaker. And you talk about regular order. We ought to pass a bill, and then we ought to go and have an agreement.

Some 90 days ago, I believe, we passed a budget. At your insistence, the Senate passed a budget. Good for them. We have not gone to conference. You have not provided an opportunity to go to conference. You haven't appointed conferees. That's regular order. The gentleman wants it on one bill but apparently not all bills.

I tell my friend we want regular order. We want to go to conference. We want to undo the breaking of an agreement that we made in the Budget Control Act, which said there would be a firewall between domestic and defense. You have eliminated that firewall.

You have assumed sequester is in place. Sequester is bad for this country. You and I tend to agree on that, I think. But the fact is there's no legislation to undo that sequester--except the legislation you talked about passing in the last Congress, which is dead, gone and buried. Yes, we want regular order.

The reason the bill lost today is because 62 of your Members rejected Mr. Lucas' plea--which I thought was a very eloquent plea--in which he said: I know some of you don't think there's enough reform in this bill, and some of you think there's too much reform. But Mr. Peterson and I brought out a bill that was a bipartisan bill, supported by the majority of Democrats and the majority of--I think all Republicans, maybe, on the committee; I'm not sure of that, Mr. Leader. But the fact of the matter is it was a bipartisan bill--just as Homeland Security was a bipartisan bill--and it was turned into a partisan bill.

You respond that the Southland amendment was for reforms. That's exactly what Mr. Lucas was talking about. He was saying some people don't think we went far enough and some people think we went too far. Mr. Southerland thought we hadn't gone far enough. And 58 Republicans voted for Southerland and then turned around and voted against the bill, the very reforms you're talking about.

So don't blame Democrats for the loss today. You didn't bring up the farm bill when it was reported out on a bipartisan basis. Last year you didn't even bring it to the floor because your party couldn't come together supporting their chairman's bill.

So that's where we find ourselves, Mr. Speaker. I wasn't going to bring up that bill at all. What happened, happened.

Very frankly, when we lost on the floor, it was because we lost on the floor when we were in the majority. We produced 218 votes for almost everything we put on this floor. Don't blame Democrats for the failure to bring 218 Republicans to your bipartisan Lucas-supported and Peterson-supported piece of legislation on the floor. We believe that that loss, that partisanship on this bill, hurt farmers, hurt consumers, hurt our country.

Let's bring that bill back to the floor and have a vote on it as it was reported out on a bipartisan basis. I think it would pass. Maybe not because of your votes. That's been your problem all along.

Don't blame Democrats for the loss of that bill. Don't blame Democrats for being partisan.

We knew about those amendments, Mr. Leader, just as you knew about them. You knew we were very much opposed to some of those amendments, notwithstanding the fact all the leadership, I believe--I haven't looked at the record--voted for those amendments just as they voted for the King amendment on Homeland Security.

Yeah, you pushed my button.

I'm prepared to work in a bipartisan fashion, but I'm not prepared to work in a bipartisan fashion when it's said, This is what we agree on--meaning your side--so you better take it if we're going to have any agreement. That's not the way it works. It never worked that way in America. That's not what America is about. America is about expecting us to work together.

This bill was reported out overwhelmingly on a bipartisan basis. It could have been passed on a very large bipartisan vote, and was precluded by the actions taken through these amendments on the floor, most of which we did not support. You knew we did not--not only you. Your party knew that we did not support.

So I'm surprised when you talk to me about regular order and there's nothing--nothing--to do on the budget conference that you wanted the Senate to pass a budget. They did. You have just told me that you wanted regular order and that we should have passed the farm bill so we could work together.

You're assuming, of course, that the Senate would have gone to conference. I hope they would have, and I think they would have, because I talked to the chair. She would have wanted to go to conference, assuming we got votes on the Republican side of the aisle.

But we also wanted to go to conference in regular order on the budget to solve the stark differences between the two parties. That's the only way you are going to get from where we are to where you need to be, by having a conference and trying to come to an agreement.

My own premise is, Mr. Leader, that you don't have a conference because there is nothing to which Patty Murray could agree, that Mr. Ryan could agree, that he could bring back to your caucus and get a majority of votes for, because they are for what you passed and nothing more than that. We are $91 billion apart. If we divide it in two and just said, ``Okay, we'll split the difference,'' you couldn't pass it on your side of the aisle, and I think you know that.

I don't know that I have any more questions that would be particularly useful, but I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Speaker, the majority leader continues to want to blame the Democrats for his inability, and the Republicans' inability, to give a majority vote to their own bill.

Maybe the American people, he thinks, can be fooled. You're in charge of the House. You have 234 Members. Sixty-two of your Members voted against your bill. That's why it failed. We didn't whine, very frankly, when we were in charge, when I was the majority leader, about we didn't pass the bill. We got 218 votes for our bills, and it was pretty tough. We got zero from your side. You got 24 from our side to help you. Mr. Peterson stuck to his deal.

Now, on the budget, you say we've got different philosophies. Yes, we do. Mr. Gingrich gave a speech on this floor about different philosophies in 1997 or '98. He was speaking to your side of the aisle. He was talking about the ``perfectionist caucus.'' He made an agreement with President Clinton, which to some degree was responsible for having balanced budgets, but your side thought it was not a good deal. Not all of your side. In a bipartisan vote, frankly, we passed the deal, the agreement, the compromise, that was reached between Mr. Gingrich and Mr. Clinton.

A lot of your folks said, No, no. Our way or the highway.

He gave a speech that he called the ``Perfectionist Caucus'' speech. That's what, in my view, I'm hearing on the budget. Yes, we have differences. The American people elected a Democratic President. They elected a Democratic Senate and a Republican House. The only way America's board of directors and President will work is if we come together and compromise.

The place to compromise under regular order is in a conference with our ideas and their ideas meeting in conference. The most central document that we need to do every year is to do a budget. But you're not going to conference. Your side will not appoint conferees. Your side will not move to go to conference. Patty Murray wants to go to conference. Senator Reid wants to go to conference. Your side over on the Senate won't go to conference, in my view, largely because they know you don't want to go to conference and they don't want to make a deal, they don't want to compromise on what their position is.

We will take no blame for the failure of the FARRM Bill--none, zero. As much as you try to say it, you can't get away from the statistic. Sixty-two, otherwise known as 25 percent, of your party voted against a bill, which is why we didn't bring it to the floor last year when it was also reported out in a bipartisan fashion.

I know you are going to continue and your side is going to continue to blame us that you couldn't get the votes on your side for your bill because you took a bipartisan bill. That's what Mr. Lucas was saying--I thought he was very articulate, I thought he was compelling--in pleading with your side: Join us, join us. It doesn't go as far as you would like.

And on reform, you talk about reform, and that's a good thing to talk about, like we're against reform.

The Senate bill has reform in it, Mr. Leader. The Senate bill has reform in it. Now, it's not in terms of dollars cutting poor people as much as this bill does, but it cuts. It has reform in it. What some of them want--what apparently your side wants--is your reform, not compromised reform. Mr. Lucas brought to the floor $20 billion and couched it as reform and said on the floor it may not be enough for some and it may be too much for others, but it is a compromise. He was right, but it was rejected by 25 percent of your party--they rejected the chairman--and that's why this bill failed.

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

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