Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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

I note that the Export-Import Bank, which, of course, expires on June 30, is not among the scheduled pieces of legislation.

As the gentleman knows, Speaker Boehner has been quoted as saying that, if we don't pass the Export-Import Bank, that there are thousands of jobs on the line that would disappear pretty quickly if the Ex-Im Bank were to disappear. He then again said, as the Chamber closest to the people, ``The House works best when it is allowed to work its will.''

The majority leader knows that I am absolutely convinced that the Export-Import Bank is supported by a majority of Members of this House, but this House has not been allowed to work its will on the Export-Import Bank.

Predecessors of yours and a very dear friend of mine, Senator Blunt, said not too long ago that he believed that, if a bill were brought to the floor of the House, it would have the votes. More importantly, because he is now, of course, in the other body but is among the leadership in the other body, he said that the bill had the votes in the Senate. I believe he is right on both of those observations.

I understand the majority leader is not for the bill. It is my understanding that the Speaker is. I would hope that those of us who support it and, frankly, those who oppose it would have the opportunity, as the Speaker indicated, for the House to work its will.

Can the gentleman tell me whether there are any plans prior to June 30, when the Export-Import Bank authorization to give loans expires, are there any plans to bring that legislation before this House in a timely fashion so that the authorization would not expire?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for repeating for a third time his answer to me.

Mr. Speaker, I would simply observe, sadly, that the representation the House can work its will on an issue of great importance to the United States and to jobs in the United States will not be brought to this floor, notwithstanding the fact that 180 Democrats have signed a discharge petition and 60 Republicans filed a bill to extend the Export-Import Bank.

That is 240 votes, Mr. Speaker, as the Speaker well can add himself. Two hundred and forty votes is a majority of this House. They reflect in my view, Mr. Speaker, the will of this House.

It is extraordinarily regrettable that, when the Speaker of the House says that, if we don't do something, thousands of American jobs are going to be lost--it is particularly regrettable, just after we had a vote on a bill that many people believe is going to lose us jobs and, therefore, they opposed.

How sad it is that we don't bring to the floor a bill which will, like 85 other countries--85 other countries--help us export goods? Those 85 countries, Mr. Speaker, are not going to stop helping their countries export goods, so the loss will be to our exporters and those they employ.

I very much regret that that won't be brought to the floor. As the majority has told me, it is not scheduled; I know it is not scheduled. I lament the fact that it is not scheduled.

Representative Chris Collins of New York said: I can't figure out for the life of me why my party, the Republican Party, that stands for jobs, and in every conference meeting, it is jobs and the economy.

The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is on the floor; he talks about jobs and the economy.

Here I am, says Chris Collins, in the majority of my own Conference, fighting to defend the Export-Import Bank, which is the best example of creating jobs in America.

I regret that that is not being brought to the floor. I won't ask the question again because he has already told me it is not scheduled, and apparently, there is no intent to schedule. I regret that.

Now, Mr. Leader, if I can ask you, we passed now six appropriations bills. Yesterday, the Labor, HHS bill was marked up in subcommittee and the Financial Services in full committee.

Can the gentleman tell me whether it is the intention, whether they are scheduled right now or not, to bring all 12 appropriations bills to the floor before--well, whenever--all 12 bills to the floor?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that.

Let me ask him further as he knows what is happening in the Senate and whether they can take those bills up: Does the gentleman contemplate, as the majority leader, or does he know whether the Speaker contemplates any effort to come to a bipartisan agreement as was done when Mr. Ryan and Senator Murray met and came to grips with a resolution and a compromise on what otherwise would be the sequester 302(a) allocations on discretionary spending, which the chair of the committee, as you know, Chairman Rogers, has called ill-conceived and unrealistic?

Does the majority leader know whether there is any plan to try to get us from the gridlock, which we are apparently in one more time on the appropriations process, to a place as Ryan-Murray got us where we moved ahead in a bipartisan way and, in fact, funded the government?

Although, it was not until December, and we had a stopgap measure in there. Is there anything scheduled to discuss that or to pursue that compromise?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank my friend.

There is no Democrat in this House, in the Senate, or in the White House who wants to shut down this government. As a matter of fact, we have not done that. It was done in '95 and in early '96. It was done last year when many in your party said ``shut it down'' if the President doesn't change his immigration policy. Any suggestion, Mr. Speaker, that Democrats want to shut down the government is simply incorrect.

Now, what the minority leader has said in the Senate, I believe, is that, until such time as sequester is changed that it is not useful to waste time on bills that will not become law as we did, of course, many years during the Ryan budgets, which were never implemented, and they were never implemented in the House of Representatives fully--not once. Why? It is because, as Mr. Rogers said, they were ill-conceived and unrealistic.

I just want to make it clear to the majority leader that I am prepared to work with him and with others to get us to a compromise on levels of funding that are realistic and well conceived by Mr. Rogers, by Mr. Cochran, and by others.

Until we do that, we are going to be in a place where we are going to be, I predict, in late September, on the threshold of giving some fear that the government is going to shut down again, the greatest government on the face of the Earth. I am not sure what people around the world thought when we shut our government down for 16 days. It was not a confidence builder. That is for sure.

We have another item that we are losing confidence on, the highway bill. You didn't mention, Mr. Leader, anything about the highway bill being scheduled. I understand it does not expire until July 31, so we have about 6 weeks, maybe a little longer than that.

Does the gentleman know whether there is any compromise being achieved so that we can give confidence to States, counties, municipalities, contractors, the business community that they will have a funding stream to invest in building, repairing, and maintaining our infrastructure in this country?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his observation. I think that is my reputation, that of wanting to work to constructively achieve joint objectives--in this case, the highway bill.

Mr. Ryan is on the floor, but I won't ask him to yield for a question as to whether or not the Ways and Means Committee has come up with a way to finance the highway bill.

I know he said that there is not going to be a gasoline tax, which, historically, Republican Presidents have been for. I am not suggesting this be it, but maybe tax reform, as my friend has said publicly for that.

I will repeat, Mr. Leader, there is no Democrat who wants to shut down the government. I hear what you said. I know the quote. What they have said is they are not going to shut it down indirectly as you want to do. Now, you have done it directly.

I do not mean you, personally, but the only two times that I have served in the Congress of the United States over the last 34 years when the government was shut down as a policy was in 1995 under Newt Gingrich and in the last Congress. Those were the only times, and I have been here 34 years.

Has it happened inadvertently for a couple of days? Yes, it has, because the legislation was not agreed to or we couldn't get it to the President in time or things of that nature.

Let me say something because, on your side of the aisle, you love to say this. You love to place sequestration at the feet of President Obama's. Now, my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, has not been here as long as I have, but sequestration originally started certainly in Gramm-Rudman--or it may have even started before then--with Phil Gramm, a Republican from Texas, and Mr. Rudman, a Republican from New Hampshire. That is when it started. Then we see all the time the across-the-board cuts--the 1 percent, the 2 percent, the 3 percent. Now, we have defeated them, but that is a part of sequestration.

More importantly, on 7/15/11, your side, in charge of the Congress, offered a bill that you called Cut, Cap, and Balance. Now, this was 5 days or 6 days before your allegation that Mr. Lew went to the majority leader then, Mr. Reid, and said maybe sequestration will help get this bill through.

First of all, Mr. Speaker, we were confronting the failure to reauthorize the payment of America's bills, the debt limit. That was what we were facing. What Mr. Lew was suggesting was that the Republicans liked sequestration, so maybe if we put that in the bill, even though we don't like it, they will vote for not defaulting on the national debt.

In fact, that is what happened; but if you look at your Cut, Cap, and Balance bill--your bill I voted against--the fallback that you suggested was sequestration. That was about a week before Mr. Lew said to Mr. Reid that maybe that will get our Republican friends to support paying the national debt.

That passed, by the way, on the July 19, 2011. It was 6 days later that Mr. Lew, in trying to get something done to make sure that America did not default, suggested to Mr. Reid maybe putting that in the bill will get the Republicans' votes so that we will pay our debts.

The problem is, if you know the facts, you get a little frustrated with hearing this representation, the President was for sequester. Let's just, for the sake of argument, say that nobody here was for sequester. Then let's get rid of sequester. If you are for sequester, I get it. You don't want to change it.

There are a lot of your Members who certainly don't want to change it. I tell people all over this country when I talk to them that sequester is a complicated word. It starts with an S. It stands for ``stupid.'' It is a policy unrelated to opportunities, to challenges, and to needs. It was a number pulled out of the air.

I would hope, Mr. Leader, that we don't talk about ``you did it'' and ``you did it.'' Let's talk about how we solve the problems confronting our country. Ex-Im is one of them. Appropriations bills that we can agree on is another and highway bill funding to give confidence to our economy and to our entities that have to keep people moving and commerce moving.

Let's give them confidence. Let's sit down. Let's get these done. Let's bring it to the floor. As Speaker Boehner said, let this House work its will.

The gentleman referred to the 46 Democrats who voted with him and his party on the most recent bill, which was a tax reduction and which is, as are all of the tax reductions that you have brought to the floor, unpaid for.

Very frankly, as the father of three daughters, as the grandfather of three grandchildren, and as the great-grandfather of three great-grandchildren, I don't like the fact that the expectation is they will pay the bill. They don't vote, of course, so they can't vote for or against us.

My daughters can, notwithstanding the 46 people who voted for it on our side of the aisle because they are for the policy. I will tell you I have talked to a lot of them, and they are not for not paying for it, but they were put in the position of either being for something, therefore, or being against something because it is not paid for and is hurting future generations.

The only reason I mention that is the gentleman brought it up, and I will tell him that there is very broad, almost unanimous sentiment on our side that we ought to pay for things, and when that policy was in

place, we balanced the budget for 4 years in a row.

I yield to my friend.

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