Legislative Program
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader, the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the schedule for the week to come, and I yield to my friend, Mr. McCarthy.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for the information he has given us. I have some questions on that information, but before getting to the bills that we are going to consider next week, I note the absence of the Homeland Security bill.
That continues to, unfortunately, be mired in controversy, Mr. Speaker. It is a bill that I would remind our Members, Mr. Speaker--and I know the majority leader knows this--has been agreed to, essentially.
There really is no controversy with respect to the funding of the Homeland Security Department. There are no amendments being offered to change the numbers or anything of that nature.
There is, however, the holding hostage, Mr. Speaker, of this bill for the purposes of overturning the President's actions which, in our view, he was forced to take because of the inaction of this body after over a year of even considering the comprehensive immigration reform bill that the Senate passed by over 60 votes, with almost two-thirds of the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, voting for that bill.
Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned and the American people are concerned that a bill which is so critically important for the defense of our borders, for the security of our country, and the security of our people is languishing, notwithstanding the fact that we have agreement on the underlying bill. There is no disagreement in my view.
The Homeland Security bill, Mr. Speaker, in my opinion, would pass with over 400 votes if it were brought to this floor, but for the fact that it is being held hostage to force the President to do something that the Senate clearly has indicated they are not going to approve.
Mr. Speaker, I would urge the majority leader to bring to the floor a clean bill. By clean, I mean the Republican-reported bill--not our bill, but a compromise bill--a Republican-reported bill in December, conferenced--conference may overstate it because it was the four leaders, Republicans and Democrats meeting--and they brought out of that meeting to this floor a Homeland Security bill that could pass overwhelmingly.
Every day that we delay puts us closer to the February 27 deadline that was set in December for the funding of this bill, taken out of the omnibus appropriation bill that we passed, put on a short-term leash, putting our homeland security at risk.
Mr. Speaker and Mr. Majority Leader, I would ask you: Is there any plan at some point in time to say we are not going to snatch defeat from the jaws of compromise?
The leader knows. The leader is very astute. He understands this body very well and knows full well that the underlying bill has consensus.
If there is anything that is frustrating the American people, it is that when we have something that we agree upon, we turn it into something that we can't agree on.
I yield to my friend, Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of telling me what his view is as to when we are going to be able to pass an appropriation bill to ensure that the Homeland Security Department can operate in an effective, efficient manner to protect America and Americans.
I yield to my friend.
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Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gentleman's comments, Mr. Speaker, but, frankly, the American people ought not to be confused. There is a bipartisan agreement. We did not send, however, the bipartisan-agreed bill to the Senate.
We did, as we so often do, add to a bipartisan agreement something that does not have agreement, and that undermines the ability of this Congress to work on behalf of the American people in an effective way.
Very frankly, Mr. Speaker, the majority leader knows that. He knows it because I have had discussions with him. He knows it because, publicly, the President has said, Democrats have said: We don't agree with the provision you're adding to something that has been agreed upon in a bipartisan fashion by the Senate and by the House.
The majority leader knows full well that if we sent a clean bill that has already been agreed upon by the Appropriations Committee in the House, by the Appropriations Committee in the Senate, by Republicans and Democrats on the Appropriations Committee in the House and by Republicans and Democrats on the Appropriations Committee in the United States Senate, already agreed to--now, let me, Mr. Speaker, read you some comments by someone who I had a great opportunity to serve with in this Congress.
Secretary Tom Ridge--the first Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, a Republican--and Michael Chertoff, who was also a Republican Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, joined with Secretary--now president--Napolitano. The president wanted great educational institutions in our country; she was then Secretary and former Governor of Arizona.
All three of them said:
Funding for the entire agency should not be put in jeopardy by the debate about immigration.
Again, I remind you that this is Secretary Ridge, former Republican Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the former Republican Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Michael Chertoff, former Republican Secretary of the Homeland Security Department; as well as Secretary Napolitano.
They said:
It is imperative that we ensure that the Department of Homeland Security is ready, willing, and able to protect the American people. To that end, we urge you not to risk funding for the operations that protect every American and pass a clean Department of Homeland Security funding bill.
I agree with Secretary Ridge. I agree with Secretary Chertoff.
When my friend says, ``Oh, it's the Senate,'' I disagree with my friend. It is the Senate who has not passed a bill. Of course, complaining about the 60-vote requirement after having required the most number of cloture votes in history in the last Congress by the current majority leader of the United States Senate when he was minority leader is a little difficult to understand. I choose my words carefully on that.
The fact of the matter is we are putting at risk the security of the American people. We have seen in Canada, we have seen in France, and we have seen in the Middle East horrific terrorist acts. This Department was created to prevent such acts.
By God's grace and their work, America has been very fortunate since September 11, 2001.
The Secretaries are saying don't put that at risk.
So, Mr. Speaker, I would urge once again not only the majority leader but the majority party in this House to accept the fact that we do not have agreement on immigration.
I accept the fact that they believe the President has acted incorrectly. What I do not accept, Mr. Speaker, is that they are holding hostage the budget for the Department of Homeland Security in order to make their point on immigration. I would hope that the majority leader would urge his side of the aisle to not do that.
I close on this particular issue with this quote. When asked what was going to happen when time ran out on February 27 on this funding of the Department of Homeland Security, John McCain, former Presidential candidate on the Republican side of the aisle, former Republican Member of this body and now the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee in the United States Senate, said this when asked what was going to happen on February 27. He said: ``Your guess is as good as mine.''
What do you think our adversaries think when, on the Department of Homeland Security, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee says: ``Your guess is as good as mine''?
He goes on and says this: ``I believe in one fundamental principle; that is, we cannot shut down the Department of Homeland Security.''
Unfortunately, the Republican whip, my friend, observed that, well, we maybe just can do that.
Now, the theory is, Mr. Speaker, that because it is funded out of fees and because they are critically important employees, that we won't shut down the Department in one sense. But in another sense, we will preclude it from being empowered by the bipartisan bill passed out of the House Appropriations Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee, and which we considered in December, to perform its duties.
I will yield to my friend, Mr. Speaker, if he wants to make an additional comment. If not, I will go on to some of the other legislation that needs discussion.
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Mr. HOYER. I am glad to hear the majority leader will not stand for it.
Over a year ago, the United States Senate passed, overwhelmingly, a comprehensive immigration reform bill. The reason they are holding hostage the Department of Homeland Security, Mr. Speaker, is because they don't agree.
But the majority leader has just said, Bring it to the floor. Let us vote. Let us offer amendments. We have asked that the Senate bill on immigration reform--which the House Republicans apparently don't agree with but on which the overwhelming majority of Americans in polling are saying yes, they agree with it.
So the majority leader complains about a bill not being brought to the floor. The minimum wage bill is a very, very important bill that the overwhelming majority of Americans support. In five States on which it was on the ballot, it was passed, in some red States and, yes, some blue States, mostly red States, by the way, and there is a refusal to bring it to the floor.
So, Mr. Speaker, when I hear the majority leader complain about not letting that bill come to the floor, the majority leader knows, and everybody in this body knows, that if that bill should squeak by the Senate, it would be vetoed by the President. And I guarantee the majority leader, that veto would be sustained here.
I would remind him the reason the Secretaries say bring a clean bill to the floor, your Secretaries, as well as one of mine on our side of the aisle, the reason they say that is because they know that what I say is absolutely correct.
So, Mr. Speaker, I tell the majority leader, who is my friend and whom I have great respect for, that complaining about not bringing bills to the floor, we all need to look in the mirror, because if the issue is comprehensive immigration reform and you don't like what the President is doing, bring a bill to the floor.
Show us what you want to do. Let us vote on it. Send it to the Senate, see what they do, and then if they pass it, send it to the President.
But don't hold hostage the Department of Homeland Security. Don't put Americans at risk. Don't turn a bipartisan consensus agreement into partisan gridlock, which the Americans hate, and which puts them at risk.
I will go on to other matters, unless the majority leader would like me to yield to him one more time.
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information, but I would observe that we have spent the first 4 weeks considering an awful lot of legislation that didn't go to committee at all--no hearings, came right to the floor through the Rules Committee.
Mr. Speaker, I am confounded by the representative of the majority party complaining about what the Senate Democrats have done and saying we are not for this bill when, more than at any other time in history, his party did that in the last Congress.
Mr. Speaker, there are other pieces of legislation I am concerned about. Let me ask the leader, if I can, with respect to the apparently seven bills which the Ways and Means Committee has considered, are those bills going to be considered, Mr. Leader, seriatim, one by one? Or is the expectation, as apparently I think I am reading in the comments you made, going to be packaged? And if so, does the gentleman know how many bills are going to be in which package and how many packages there are going to be?
I yield to my friend.
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Mr. HOYER. When I get an answer, I will stop asking. How about that, Mr. Speaker?
In terms of the deficit, I know your side is very concerned about the deficit. My side is very concerned about the deficit, and I certainly am very concerned about the deficit, as the gentleman knows. I have worked in a lot of ways to try to bring this down.
One of my propositions is that we need to pay for things. Whether we spend money or reduce revenues, we need to offset that.
Does the gentleman know whether there is any intention to offset that so we do not exacerbate, make the deficit worse?
I yield to my friend.
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.
Just so that the American people are clear on the record, Mr. Speaker, Ronald Reagan, about whom the gentleman spoke, didn't get to 5.6 percent unemployment until his eighth year as President of the United States. And he did not confront nearly as deep a recession as this President inherited from his predecessor, in which 4 million people had lost their job in 2008 and 878,000 people lost their job when he took office in 2009. So it has been a tough time.
But the good news is--not the bad news--that we have increased our economy faster, better, and more sustainably than any other country on Earth. That is good news, and we ought to tell the American people that is good news.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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