Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come.

I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. McCarthy), the majority leader.

(Mr. McCARTHY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for the information he has given us, and I certainly thank him for his comments at the close of his initial statement on the colloquy.

We are all ecstatic, as I am sure the gentleman can understand, that after 44 years--and I might say I was an initial season ticket holder to the Washington Capitals, who started their career at the Capital Center in Prince George's County under the ownership and tutelage of Abe Pollin, an extraordinary member of our community who died, and then now under Ted Leonsis' leadership, and, of course, Alex Ovechkin's extraordinary accomplishments of his own, being named the most valuable player.

And I might say, as I know the gentleman would join me in saying, the Las Vegas team had an extraordinary accomplishment themselves, being the first expansion team ever to make it to the finals in the National Championship.

So, it was a wonderful night for those of us who live in the Washington National Capital area, and we thank the gentleman for his observation.

Let me say as well, that we share the gentleman's happiness that the economy is doing well. It is doing well. What he did not observe, but we are happy about, is that President Obama, under his leadership, took this economy from the worst economy that the gentleman and I have experienced in our lifetimes to one of the best.

Now, it was not the best, because the best economy was under Bill Clinton in the late 1990s in terms of almost every indication. But it is certainly positive information, as the gentleman has pointed out, of where the economy is now.

So we all welcome that. We are hopeful, of course, that we will build on that.

The gentleman mentions there are over 6 million jobs available. One of the challenges, as the gentleman knows, is that we don't have the skill sets matching the jobs, and that is why they are vacant. That is why they are unable to fill them. We need to, I think, focus on that. We need to focus on investing in our infrastructure.

But as was mentioned on the floor yesterday in terms of a couple of the bills Tim Ryan, in particular, mentioned, there are still 4 in 10 adults who can't pay a $400 bill if it came present. So we have work to do, and hopefully we can do that together.

But it certainly is good news that unemployment is down and the economy is moving along, continuing in the path that, from our perspective, was set by President Obama, and that President Trump, unlike President Obama, inherited a thriving, robust, growing economy. So I am pleased that we have gone to that place.

Now, I know the gentleman indicated that a number of opioid-related bills will be on the floor next week. I talked to the chairman of the committee yesterday, the gentleman from Oregon, and most of those are bipartisan bills. I hope all of them will end up, as they come to the floor, as bipartisan bills.

The addiction crisis, of course, requires that we invest in a comprehensive, long-term approach to expanding access to substance abuse treatment. I hope we can tackle this issue in a meaningful and bipartisan way. But I do want to address a number of other upcoming items for this work period, starting with the farm bill.

As the gentleman knows, last month, the farm bill failed on the House floor, and we have until June 22 to reconsider. My question is: Does the gentleman expect that we will see a farm bill on the floor by June 22?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his observation.

He talks about work. We are requiring those to work to work in order to get government benefits. What is controversial about that?

Democrats support work. We want to see people working. We oppose, however, your SNAP proposal because it is antiwork. You are taking a work requirement that is working and replacing it with one that won't work.

This is not about putting people to work. It is about pretending that you care about work as cover for taking assistance away from struggling families.

As a result of this bill, there will be fewer working--I know the majority leader wants to hear this particular piece of information.

As a result of this bill as it is currently written, there will be fewer working SNAP beneficiaries, not more, and millions more people going hungry. That is the working poor who are getting nutritional assistance for themselves and their families. There will be less of them under your bill.

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman is ecstatic about recent statistics. I think that he has, of course, warrant to be.

Let me read to the gentleman statistics over a 68-year period where Democrats have had the Presidency and Republicans have had the Presidency on and off. The gentleman's words are almost exactly the same words I heard in 2001 and 2003 when we were told and the country was told, if we adopted those tax bills that the gentleman is so very proud of--which is plunging our country $1.8 trillion into additional debt, which he and his party wrung their hands about so repeatedly--and that the CBO says is a result of what I believe to be the most fiscally irresponsible Congress in which I have served.

Let me repeat that. I have served in 18 Congresses. I believe this past Congress to be, this Congress that we are in, the most fiscally irresponsible Congress in which I have served.

Yes, we have a philosophical difference. You gave 83 percent of your tax revenues to the richest people in America. CBO says that; I don't say that. And 17 percent to all the rest; i.e., some 300 million-plus Americans.

Yes, we have a philosophical difference. We would have suggested that the mix be a little fairer to those in the middle and the bottom of the economic growth. But, no, you chose to give your benefits to the wealthiest in America. Not surprising. It is trickle-down economics one more time.

In 2001 and 2003, what happened? You did the tax cuts.

And what happened 6 years later? The country was plunged into the deepest recession you, Mr. Majority Leader, or me have ever experienced in our life. As a matter of fact, you have to be over 90 years of age to have experienced a deeper recession than was brought on by the Bush economic policies in the last decade, a depth of recession which the Obama policies brought us out of faster than any other nation in the world.

Those are the statistics. Faster than any other nation. The stock market--we are all about the stock market. The stock market went up almost 300 percent under Barack Obama. Now, when you get to 300 percent, we will about how well you have done. We will see what your trade policies that the President is imposing on the country do to employers and to employees and to consumers. We will see.

But let me tell you what has happened over the last 68 years under Democratic Presidents and under Republican Presidents. The gentleman wants to know about history. Under Republican Presidents over the 36 years that your party enjoyed control of the Presidency, the GDP grew by an average of 2.5 percent. Under Democrats for 32 years, by 4.1 percent.

Now, what did that 1.6 percent difference mean?

What it meant was, under Republican Presidents over the last 68 years, 35 million jobs were created. The gentleman talks about jobs. Under Democratic Presidents--4 less years, 32 years--there were 64.960 million jobs created.

Now, I hope, unlike your past performance, that the job growth continues, that the stock market increase continues, but that has not been the history. We will see.

So I hope that when you deal with the farm bill, notwithstanding your statistics, that you bring a bipartisan bill. Very frankly, the farm bill has historically been a farm bill. But what you did was passed a tax bill giving the rich 83 percent of its benefits. And in the farm bill you were taking nutritional assistance away from families and children. That is why you couldn't pass it, among other reasons. It was not bipartisan, as it was two Congresses ago when we reauthorized this. You tried to cut the SNAP program by $40 billion.

The gentleman well knows the Senate is not pursuing your policies either on the Republican side or the Democratic side.

You are missing a lot of good information.

The fact of the matter is, you know your farm bill is not going to pass the Senate.

Mr. Leader, on the farm bill I would urge you to come together with us. I don't know that there is a more bipartisan member of this Congress than Collin Peterson, the ranking Democratic on the Agriculture Committee. Very frankly, the chairman was not interested in a bipartisan bill. I don't know whether it was by direction or his own view.

But let us come to a bipartisan agreement on this farm bill and pass it over to the Senate so that you can do something, not just talk about how you are reducing nutritional assistance to people that rely on it for their food every day.

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I hear the words of the majority leader. He and his party, without exception, opposed President Obama's programs. Without exception.

We became the majority in 2007, and we worked with President Bush on a number of things, including a very substantiation environmental bill signed by President Bush, and other bills as well.

He mentions about the rescission package. Mr. Speaker, if you will recall, when we had this debate some weeks ago, he said everything in this rescission bill is what we don't need.

Guess what, Mr. Speaker? Ebola money was rescinded in that bill some weeks ago, but not in this bill. He changed it because, very frankly, Mr. Speaker, they found out, oops, we need the Ebola money. So they took it out of this bill.

We think you need the CHIP money. We think we need the CHIP money to make sure that if there is a happening or an occurrence that occurs, the CHIP money is needed either directly or indirectly to make sure that children, in fact, are taken care of.

Who has said that? Mr. Tom Cole has said that. We have used that money effectively and appropriately.

So, Mr. Speaker, it is hard to believe that if the Ebola money--which I was assured was not needed--that cut was restored by our Republican friends, Mr. Speaker, because they found out, yes, it is needed.

Now, in terms of wasting time, 65 votes over the last Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act--65--with a full and unquestioned knowledge that none of those votes would result in something happening for our country in the United States Senate. They weren't going to vote for that. They knew that. So we spent a lot of time on that.

Let me also say: The gentleman says let's get about our business. Let me ask the gentleman: Does he expect a bill on the DACA protectees, the Dreamers, to come on the floor next week?

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. I would only say, I appreciate his comments. But, Mr. Speaker, I have heard them a long time, many, many times: We are going to solve this issue.

Mr. Ryan came to the floor and said: We are going to solve this issue. You vote for this caps bill, and we will get an immigration bill on the floor that will solve this issue.

That was some 2\1/2\ months ago. It is not solved yet, Mr. Speaker. I hope the leader does, in fact, bring a bill to the floor quickly.

In fact, the suggestion that had been made by many Members of his party and mine to bring four options to the floor seems absolutely consistent with the Speaker's pledge to take the tough issues head-on; and that is, bring the Democratic bill that is cosponsored by one of the senior Republicans, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, to the floor; bring the Goodlatte bill, which has been reported out of the Republican Judiciary Committee, to the floor; bring a bill cosponsored by Mr. Hurd and Mr. Aguilar to the floor.

Then what we provide, Mr. Leader, is that the Speaker can bring a bill to the floor of his choosing. What could be fairer than that to let the people's House speak on this critically important issue? So I would hope the gentleman would facilitate that coming to the floor.

Lastly, Mr. Speaker, let me say that this is the most closed Congress in history. He talks about coming to his office, and I have. We have worked constructively and positively together, and I have great respect for the majority leader. I know he is very close to President Trump, and he has talked about his working with President Trump to move forward.

Let us hope that the talks with Korea bear fruit. We have had a lot of talks with the Koreans. They have made a lot of pledges, and they haven't followed them. We will see what happens. We are hoping for the best.

In coming to your office, we have had some discussions. We have had discussions about DACA. But, very frankly, when we come to this floor, this is the most closed Congress, Mr. Leader, in recent history, if not history. We have had 85 closed rules. Zero, not a single open rule have we considered.

Over 2,000 germane amendments have been blocked by the Rules Committee. Mr. Speaker, that is amendments that are in order, and they have been blocked. In fact, 194 Republicans--Republicans--have been refused the opportunity to move forward on their amendments.

Now, I know that the leader's schedule is such that we can conclude this debate. I have other things to say. But I am hopeful that, frankly, whatever we bring to the floor, bring it on a rule that provides for full consideration, bring it that reflects facing the tough issues, bring it so the House can work its will on these bills, including the farm bill, including an immigration bill that protects the Dreamers, and including other legislation so critical to this country. Let the House work its will through the amendatory process.

Mr. Speaker, unless the gentleman wants to say something, I yield back the balance of my time.

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