Expressing Sense of Congress Regarding Need for Continued Availability of Religious Services to Members of the Armed Services

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I do not oppose this resolution--it sounds sensible going forward--but I do want to raise a couple of process issues.

We found out about this--I found out about this--20 minutes ago. I think it is just emblematic of how much this body has broken down. We have to talk to each other. I don't have an objection to this. I've got staff; the Armed Services Committee has a staff. We work together. We have worked together on the Armed Services Committee better than any other committee in this Congress. I will grant you that that isn't saying much, but we have.

We just simply have to talk to each other. Why would they spring this on us at the last minute and not have a communication about it? It is not something we object to.

Getting past this individual issue, it is emblematic of the entire problem. The Republicans are complaining because the Senate isn't talking to them and the President isn't talking to them about the CR and the debt ceiling. There are reasons for that. But we have reached an epidemic of not talking to each other. On something as small as this we can't even have a communication.

Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. SMITH of Washington. I will gladly yield to the gentleman from South Carolina.

Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Smith, I agree, on the Armed Services Committee--and I want to commend you--we work together in an extraordinary fashion. In fact, the National Defense Authorization Act has passed the House as an indication of your goodwill and good faith.

I believe the reason this has come up so quickly, of course, is because this was only learned late yesterday. The consequence of the thought of chaplains to be declared trespassing is inconceivable and it needs to be addressed.

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Right. But again, the communications level has fallen apart. On our side of the aisle, we don't know from one minute to the next what we are going to be voting on. The schedule has been changed at a moment's notice.

I will tell you, even back in the shutdown of 1995, there was greater communication between the majority and the minority about what was going on. In fact, we had a lot of these small little bills that funded little pieces of the government.

But the one thing the majority did is they granted the full House a vote on a--and what a clean resolution means is it only pertains to spending; it doesn't pertain to other policy issues. That vote was granted. The House Republicans voted it down. That was their position. But at least we had a vote. Then we also had a discussion about what we could fund during the shutdown.

The complete and utter breakdown in communication between the majority party, the minority party, the Senate and the House, the White House and us is doing an unbelievable disservice to this country. I don't care if we get in a room and yell at each other for 4 hours. Let's at least have a communication.

I want to really paint the picture here. We all have our talking points, and I heard all of those talking points this morning. I have heard them so much--and I am sure that the American people and I are absolutely sick to death of those talking points. They are poll tested, they are wonderful, they play to the base, they are great, and here we are on day 5 going nowhere.

The basic problem here, number one, on the CR is the health care policy issue, that basically the Republicans--this is no secret--want to get rid of the health care law. The trouble is they don't have the votes to do it, and they are, therefore, willing to hold up the funding of the government in order to advance their policy agenda. That is a very important point because that plays into the larger issue.

I also want to tell you that we are--what is it--12 days now away from defaulting. We are going to default at this point, because what I hear from my Republican colleagues is, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don't want to default. As long as we cut enough spending, as long as we do tax reform we will be fine, which, of course, is what we have been hearing since January of 2011.

I just want to explain briefly to the American people what the difference in the positions are here, and I am going to be as fair and honest as I can be. The Republicans believe strongly that we should severely cut spending, and cutting spending at this point means mandatory programs, entitlements, because we have already cut discretionary spending down to the BCA level, down to the level they agreed to. That is what some of my colleagues are referencing about the CR. The spending level is down there. But they don't want to do that. The deficit is high, so they want to cut spending. The President has on more than one occasion put entitlement cuts on the table.

The difference of opinion is whether or not we should also raise taxes as part of that deal to deal with the deficit. The President, the Senate, and the Democrats in the House--which I realize is irrelevant because we don't have the votes--but unfortunately for you guys they do in the Senate, and the President has the veto. If there is going to be any entitlement cuts, they have to be accompanied by tax increases. The Republicans say, absolutely not, we are not going to do that. So that is the divide.

The problem is the Republicans won 234 seats in the House. Interestingly, they lost the overall vote in Congress by a count of 52 to 48--but redistricting plays out the way it does. They did not win the Presidency and they did not win the Senate. So they are trying to take those 234 votes in the House and jam their broader agenda down everybody's throat. The piece that they have is they are willing to not fund the government and not raise the debt ceiling in order to put us in a bad position to do that.

I will tell you, Democrats cannot vote to cut entitlements if there are not tax increases attached to them. So I hope somebody somewhere wakes up to this reality before we default and stops insisting that somehow miraculously in the next 12 days Democrats are going to magically agree to cut entitlements with no revenue, and maybe do some big complicated tax reform bill that cuts taxes even further. Because if that reality does not set in, we are in for several weeks of great calamity that is going to cause greater damage than what has been caused here.

So with that, I support the resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Washington. Right. But again, the communications level has fallen apart. On our side of the aisle, we don't know from one minute to the next what we are going to be voting on. The schedule has been changed at a moment's notice.

I will tell you, even back in the shutdown of 1995, there was greater communication between the majority and the minority about what was going on. In fact, we had a lot of these small little bills that funded little pieces of the government.

But the one thing the majority did is they granted the full House a vote on a--and what a clean resolution means is it only pertains to spending; it doesn't pertain to other policy issues. That vote was granted. The House Republicans voted it down. That was their position. But at least we had a vote. Then we also had a discussion about what we could fund during the shutdown.

The complete and utter breakdown in communication between the majority party, the minority party, the Senate and the House, the White House and us is doing an unbelievable disservice to this country. I don't care if we get in a room and yell at each other for 4 hours. Let's at least have a communication.

I want to really paint the picture here. We all have our talking points, and I heard all of those talking points this morning. I have heard them so much--and I am sure that the American people and I are absolutely sick to death of those talking points. They are poll tested, they are wonderful, they play to the base, they are great, and here we are on day 5 going nowhere.

The basic problem here, number one, on the CR is the health care policy issue, that basically the Republicans--this is no secret--want to get rid of the health care law. The trouble is they don't have the votes to do it, and they are, therefore, willing to hold up the funding of the government in order to advance their policy agenda. That is a very important point because that plays into the larger issue.

I also want to tell you that we are--what is it--12 days now away from defaulting. We are going to default at this point, because what I hear from my Republican colleagues is, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, we don't want to default. As long as we cut enough spending, as long as we do tax reform we will be fine, which, of course, is what we have been hearing since January of 2011.

I just want to explain briefly to the American people what the difference in the positions are here, and I am going to be as fair and honest as I can be. The Republicans believe strongly that we should severely cut spending, and cutting spending at this point means mandatory programs, entitlements, because we have already cut discretionary spending down to the BCA level, down to the level they agreed to. That is what some of my colleagues are referencing about the CR. The spending level is down there. But they don't want to do that. The deficit is high, so they want to cut spending. The President has on more than one occasion put entitlement cuts on the table.

The difference of opinion is whether or not we should also raise taxes as part of that deal to deal with the deficit. The President, the Senate, and the Democrats in the House--which I realize is irrelevant because we don't have the votes--but unfortunately for you guys they do in the Senate, and the President has the veto. If there is going to be any entitlement cuts, they have to be accompanied by tax increases. The Republicans say, absolutely not, we are not going to do that. So that is the divide.

The problem is the Republicans won 234 seats in the House. Interestingly, they lost the overall vote in Congress by a count of 52 to 48--but redistricting plays out the way it does. They did not win the Presidency and they did not win the Senate. So they are trying to take those 234 votes in the House and jam their broader agenda down everybody's throat. The piece that they have is they are willing to not fund the government and not raise the debt ceiling in order to put us in a bad position to do that.

I will tell you, Democrats cannot vote to cut entitlements if there are not tax increases attached to them. So I hope somebody somewhere wakes up to this reality before we default and stops insisting that somehow miraculously in the next 12 days Democrats are going to magically agree to cut entitlements with no revenue, and maybe do some big complicated tax reform bill that cuts taxes even further. Because if that reality does not set in, we are in for several weeks of great calamity that is going to cause greater damage than what has been caused here.

So with that, I support the resolution.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SMITH of Washington. I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, first of all, again, I support this resolution. Nobody is getting arrested for praying. I really wish we could keep the debate here in the realm of reality. I believe the issue is that they have been furloughed in some instances so that they are not allowed to carry on the services. I don't want that misimpression left dangling out there that somehow we are arresting people for going to church. We are most certainly not, and I wish the debate would remain a little more accurate. I want to make just one other point.

While it is true that, in 1995, President Clinton talked to Republicans, ultimately, he did not give them any of the policy items that they were asking for. All President Obama is basically saying is, Look, if you want to talk, we can talk; but we can't talk about dismantling my health care law, and we can't talk about adding policy riders to the CR or to the debt ceiling, because we need to keep the government running.

And there is one other difference which I know my Republican colleagues will not address. The Republican majority under Newt Gingrich in 1995 gave this House a vote just like the Senate has given everything you've sent over to them a vote. They voted it down, but they had a vote. This House will not give us a vote on the CR that the Senate has passed. If you feel as strongly about it as you do, do what the Republicans did in 1995--bring it up and vote it down. That's democracy. That's in the Constitution, too, by the way. That would be helpful.

I reserve the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source