Legislative Business

Floor Speech

LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS -- (House of Representatives - December 13, 2007)

(Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Maryland, the majority leader, for information about what I hope to be the last week's schedule of this working year.

Mr. HOYER. One week longer than I had hoped.

I thank the gentleman. On Monday, the House will meet at 10:30 a.m. for morning-hour debate and noon for legislative business with any votes ordered postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for morning-hour debate and 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules, and most of those bills will be announced before the close of business tomorrow.

We will also expect further action on the following items: energy legislation, terrorism risk insurance, the fiscal 2008 appropriations package, the alternative minimum tax, the children's health insurance program. And there may be within the children's health program, depending on what the Senate does, dealing with the reimbursement of providers under Medicare, the docs.

I might also add to that, Members ought to know it is possible that depending upon the administrative work that can be accomplished over the next 4 or 5 days, it is possible that Monday night we might consider the omnibus appropriation bill. I mention that, but I want you to know that that is possible.

Mr. BLUNT. On that topic, my friend, I wonder, do you have any sense on what time over the weekend or on Monday it would become obvious, the Monday evening work, because we have had many Members, as I am sure you have, inquire about that specific issue.

Mr. HOYER. The chairman of the committee, Mr. Obey, has made it very clear that he wants to, although this is essentially an amendment, he wants to meet the 24-hour notice so that Members have 24 hours. So that would require Sunday night, we hope we can reach Sunday, for the posting of the bill on the Rules Committee Web site, which is usually how notice is given. And we are hopeful that will be done by Sunday night so that by Monday night it would be hopefully ready for consideration.

I want to say that the energy legislation will be considered, assuming we get the bill from the Senate, assuming we are ready to do that, considered done on Tuesday.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for that, and let me just clarify in my own mind. The energy legislation would not be considered on Monday, but if we get it, I am anticipating it would be considered on Tuesday.

Mr. HOYER. Energy legislation will be considered on Tuesday.

Mr. BLUNT. And then further clarification on your observation about more action on the children's health insurance program as it relates to the doc fix. I am a little unclear on your information on that.

Mr. HOYER. As you know, in our bill that we sent to the Senate, which the Senate did not pass, and it is still pending in the Senate, we made provision for the doctors reimbursement, which is going to be cut by 10 percent, as you know, on January 1. As a result of that, we are very concerned that there are some providers that may feel they no longer can afford to give services to those under Medicare. We think that is something that none of us want to have happen, so I wanted to put you on notice, so you knew that that was a possibility if their agreement could be reached on that issue. As you know, the Senate has not passed it.

But I am mentioning SCHIP, they may be combined, they may not be, I don't know, because that is a health care issue, and we have been talking about it as a combined. I wanted you to simply know that when I mentioned SCHIP that may well be subsumed in that or a separate item, if, in fact, agreement can be reached.

Mr. BLUNT. I will take that information and thank you for that information.

On the AMT, on the alternative minimum tax, the status on that right now is the Senate has sent over a bill without an offsetting tax pay-for, has passed one. Can you give me some information of where that bill is at this moment?

Mr. HOYER. The Senate bill is still in the Senate, as I understand it. We have passed, as you know, a House bill with a different pay-for so that the deficit is not increased by our actions. As you know, on this side of the aisle we feel very strongly, I underline ``very,'' strongly that the alternative minimum tax, I think to a Member, agree was not intended to affect some of the people that it will affect if it is not modified. We want to modify it, but we don't want to modify it at the expense of our children and grandchildren having to fill the hole that will be left by the loss in revenues on which the administration has counted in its budgets for not this year but succeeding years for the next 9 years. If that money is not there and expenditures are not cut, or revenues are not raised, then we will increase the budget deficit by a very substantial amount, billions and billions of dollars, at least $100 billion just by this one action. So we have passed a bill. The Senate has passed a bill. The Senate still has its bill. It has not passed over here.

Mr. BLUNT. I will look forward to that coming back from the Senate. I would say whether the administration does it or we do it, this policy of taking revenue we don't have now, that we don't think we should be collecting and creating a situation where we have to come up with another tax to collect it, and you mentioned the administration did that, and I believe you are right, that they did anticipate that, I think that was a wrong thing for them to do. I think it is unfortunate we have let this tax get into this situation.

Mr. HOYER. I understand the gentleman's position, but you understand for the last 5 or 6 years the Republican budgets have done the same thing.

Mr. BLUNT. And I understand for the last 5 or 6 years we have taken the initial step necessary by June to not let this encumber the tax collecting system. And even if we now are able to clarify this, it is so late that it is going to have impact on how people can file their taxes next year. I certainly would agree with any premise to suggest this should have been taken care of long ago. And as my good friend knows, we did send a bill that I voted for to President Clinton in 1999 that would have eliminated this tax. We should have done that at that time. I am sorry we couldn't figure out a way to work together and eliminate that tax then so we wouldn't have to wrestle with this issue every year between then and now.

Mr. HOYER. I appreciate the gentleman's observation about the 1997. I don't believe that was paid for either. I am not absolutely positive on that, but that is why I believe the veto occurred. But we all agree we ought to eliminate the AMT. But there is no doubt there is a very significant philosophical and policy difference between the President and your side and our side in terms of whether or not, when you eliminate and you make the patch, there is no money to do the patch. So when you take that money away, you have to fill it either with borrowing, as we have done over the last number of years, or you fill it with additional revenues. If you fill it with additional revenues, future generations are not paying the bill. If you fill it with borrowing or just leaving the emergency spending hole, future generations have to pay for it.

Now, I know we disagree on that, but it is, I think, a very honest philosophical and policy difference, and the bills reflect that.

Mr. BLUNT. They do, and it is a difference. I think the third thing that should be considered, that unfortunately we still are not able to bring ourselves to consider, is how you manage to deal with that revenue shortfall by savings and spending, by just not planning to spend it. But the President's budget did, your budget did. I don't agree with the President's budget and I voted against the majority's budget, and we do have to look at savings as one of the options. The President's budget, the President would have increased spending by over 6 percent, by over 4 1/2 percent in the bills left, and I think that is the number right now we are trying to deal with. I look forward to working with the gentleman as we deal with that, get the work of this year's Congress done, and let our Members go home and talk about what we have done or what we have failed to do.

Mr. HOYER. I think we all agree that we want to get our work done. We have had great difficulty doing that. Not so much in this body because this body, whether your side is in charge or my side is in charge, we have a Rules Committee, we can structure debate, and the majority rules.

Unfortunately, in the Senate, the majority does not rule. The Senate has decided that they will let the minority rule. They did that when we were in the majority, and it was done when your party was in the majority. We have both discussed the problems that causes a body that can, in fact, allow the majority to rule. Having said that, we are working towards trying to do what the gentleman suggested, getting our work done. To the extent that we can cooperate with one another, that will facilitate that objective.

Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate that. I do know whoever is in the majority on this side has to spend a lot of time explaining why an apparent majority on the other side of the building doesn't really become a majority on that side of the building.

I thank the gentleman for his information.

Mr. HOYER. We do find agreement from time to time, apparently.

MR. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield back.

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