Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I would hope that we would not parse words.

Mr. Leader, we have had some discussions on this, and the majority party, when it was the minority party running for office, said that we're going to have open, full debate. Mr. Boehner has said in the Pledge to America that that's what you wanted to do. Now you keep parsing your words.

I will tell you the President's plan. The President's plan currently is the bill that passed the Senate just a few hours ago, yesterday. That's the President's plan, I tell my friend. And if, in fact, Mr. Boehner's words are to be interpreted as something other than that, he says:

If our Democratic colleagues want to offer the President's plan in the Senate--

Now, obviously, we can't offer our plan in the Senate. We're House Members. So my presumption is, Mr. Leader, that that means, if we want to offer the Senate plan, which is now the President's plan, I tell my friend--

--we're more than happy to give them a vote.

I hope that is accurate. I hope that we can have a full and open debate on that issue. But I hope that the Republican side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, does not choose the amendment that we are to offer. Let us choose it, I tell my friend. And I would hope that we could clarify that so that we would know, and the American people would know, that we have a plan now passed by the Senate, and we have a plan also that was defeated in the United States Senate.

I don't know whether your side intends to offer exactly the plan that was defeated in the United States Senate, but it is a plan that the President of the United States, as the leader knows, has said he won't sign.

So what I ask my friend, respectfully, so that we know what to prepare for and we know that it will be made in order, that consistent with what the clear meaning of this statement that Mr. Boehner made just a few hours ago is, that we would be given the opportunity to offer the Senate-passed plan and would have a vote on that plan either in the form of an amendment or a substitute?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. And I will interpret that, Mr. Speaker, as indicating that if we choose to offer as an amendment the bill that passed the Senate--which ensures that there will be no tax increase on 98 percent of Americans--that we will be allowed to offer that bill and it will be protected under the rule, and such waivers as are necessary will be extended. That's how I interpret that. If I am wrong, perhaps the majority leader can correct me. But I don't want to parse words or lead to confusion.

The gentleman knows what the Senate bill is. I know what the Senate bill is. And it is, at this point in time, our intention to offer that Senate bill as an amendment to the bill that's offered on this floor. So I would hope that our understanding is that, consistent again--and I want to say consistent with the Speaker's comments--that that will be allowed.

I want to say to the gentleman as well, I think he is appropriate in referencing the past, and I'm pleased that he is not following such precedents.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. I think that clarifies it. He and I both look forward to that robust debate. We will clearly differ, Mr. Speaker, on the impact of that vote. But there will be no dispute that it will ensure that 98 percent of Americans, every working family--every working family, 100 percent--will not pay any additional taxes on the first $250,000 of their income, which we think gives confidence to people, gives confidence to the economy, and we think is an appropriate step to take. So I appreciate and look forward to that debate, which I think is an important one for the American people.

I would also like to ask the gentleman, with respect to the farm bill, he mentions in his comments that there may be some vote on the farm bill. The Senate passed a bipartisan farm bill, as the gentleman knows. It saves very substantial monies, will contribute to a reduction of the deficit. Can the gentleman tell me whether or not the House-passed farm bill will be brought to the floor or whether some alternative will be brought to the floor?

And I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. Hopefully, we can agree on how to do that, again, without making the deficit worse and adding to that and hopefully helping farmers at the same time.

Let me ask the gentleman, there are two very important bills that were passed, one in the Senate--again, with an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, and here, with not an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote--in the Violence Against Women Act, a very, very important subject. There was a very significant 62-37 vote in the Senate. Excuse me, that's not the exact figure. That's on the postal bill, which I'll ask you about in a second. It was 68-31--even more bipartisan than the postal reform bill--back on April 26, some months ago, with 15 Senate Republicans joining in favor. I don't see that on the schedule. I don't know whether the gentleman believes there's a possibility that we'll be able to pass that before the election.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for those comments, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as the gentleman well knows, the House bill excluded a large number of people from protection, a large number of people who are the victims of domestic violence from protection, as contrasted with the Senate bill, which was designed to ensure protection of all people who were subject to domestic abuse and designed to encourage people to make complaints against those who abuse them without fear of adverse consequences to them so that we could get abusers dealt with in a proper way.

And again, I would say to my friend, Mr. Speaker, that over two-thirds of the United States Senate, with an overwhelming number of Republicans as well voting for the Senate bill because they believed it was inclusive. And of course every woman Member of the Senate, Republican and Democrat, who probably have greater insight into domestic abuse than perhaps some of us males and male colleagues have.

So I would hope that we could focus on trying to reach agreement which we did not have in the House, as the gentleman knows. We had not an overwhelming bipartisan support in this House at all on the bill that was passed. So I would hope that we could compromise, cure the technical difficulty that the bill, the Senate bill passes, because, the gentleman's right, it has a fee in there, it has to initiate in the House.

But the gentleman also knows if that's included in the House bill, that that defect would be cured and we could pass it.

I would yield to my friend if he wants to make any additional comment on that bill.

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Mr. HOYER. Let me then, reclaiming my time--I'm pleased to withdraw that assertion. But in the comments, I want to make it clear, Mr. Speaker, that I do not share the majority leader's opinion that the House bill covers all people. As a matter of fact, I think that's inaccurate and incorrect. We disagree on our facts there, our analysis of the bill.

What we don't disagree on, however, because the facts are clear that we have a bill that overwhelmingly passed in the Senate. I'm fully prepared to work with a conference, as the majority leader is, and work with him in a conference to get a bill out of the conference.

I'm hopeful, Mr. Leader, that in light of the fact that in this House the bill passed 222-205, with 23 Republicans voting ``no'' on the bill, that we not only have bipartisan opposition, but we have bipartisan support of the Senate bill.

Let me go on to another bill that I think is very important because the postal department is facing real stress. It's somewhat ironic that we are, in a Congress that has too often lamented the fact that the Senate couldn't act on things, when they do act, and when they do act in a bipartisan fashion, it seems we can't act.

The postal bill has now been passed by a vote of 62 votes in favor, another bipartisan vote of the postal bill, and I'm wondering whether or not the gentleman has any idea whether we might either go to conference or bring a bill out on the House floor that I know has been passed out of committee, so that this bill can get to conference in a timely fashion so that the Post Office, which is facing, obviously, default on some of its obligations, would be made whole.

I yield to my friend.

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