Legislative Program

Floor Speech

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Cantor), the majority leader, for the purpose of inquiring about the schedule for the week to come.

Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Maryland, the Democratic whip, for yielding.

On Monday, the House will meet at noon for morning-hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. Votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for morning-hour and noon for legislative business. On Thursday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business. Last votes of the week are expected no later than 3 p.m. On Friday, no votes are expected.

Mr. Speaker, the House will consider a few suspensions next week, a complete list of which will be announced. In addition, Mr. Speaker, the House will consider three bills from the Budget Committee.

The first bill, H.R. 1871, the Baseline Reform Act, authored by Representative Rob Woodall of Georgia, would require CBO and OMB, when scoring legislation, to assume that the baseline does not increase or decrease for discretionary spending, which they do now. This practice added $1.2 trillion to the baseline in 2013.

The second bill, H.R. 1872, the Budget and Accounting Transparency Act, written by Representative Scott Garrett of New Jersey, brings off-budget programs on-budget to provide a more accurate accounting of these programs.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the House will consider and pass a budget resolution on time for a fourth consecutive year. The Republican budget, under the leadership of Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and the Budget Committee members, will adhere to the agreed-upon spending limits and balance the budget in 10 years, as we did last year, increase economic growth and job creation, create opportunity, lessen the middle class squeeze, cut wasteful government spending, and strengthen our entitlement programs.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information. It is wonderful news that that budget is going to do all of those things, I want you to know. And we are pleased that a budget is coming forward. We may not be pleased with the budget, but we are pleased that it is coming forward.

As the gentleman knows, we have already had the budget levels for fiscal year '15. You indicate that the budget will adhere to the Ryan-Murray agreement. I assume that also means that it will adhere to the firewall division between defense and nondefense discretionary spending as well.

Is that accurate, Mr. Leader?

Mr. CANTOR. I would say to the gentleman, for this fiscal year, he is correct.

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

I will tell my friend, the majority leader, The Wall Street Journal had an editorial of about 13 or 14 paragraphs. I disagreed with the first 13 paragraphs, but I did agree with the last paragraph.

It said, ``But the Ryan outline does the service of showing the policy direction in which Republicans would head if they regain control of the Senate next year.''

Then it goes on to say, ``Senate Democrats don't want to declare themselves with any votes, but they favor higher taxes and much more spending for everything other than defense. Voters will have to decide on the direction they want Congress to go.''

So, Mr. Leader, as I said, we welcome a debate on this budget. We do believe it expresses the priorities of your party, and, as you know, we differ with those priorities in many instances. So I think the American people will get a spirited, informative, and educational debate on the Ryan budget, and I think that that will do much to inform them of the priorities of both parties. As I say, we look forward to that budget.

Unemployment insurance, Mr. Leader, is being considered on the Senate floor. I know the cloture vote has been taken. I don't know whether final passage has been taken.

Does the gentleman have any expectation that if the Senate passes that bill today whether or not that bill might be on the floor next week?

I yield to my friend.

Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, first I would ask the gentleman just to refer to a letter by the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, dated March 19, to the Majority Leader and the minority leader in the other body. This letter essentially lays out the case for why their bill is unworkable. Again, these are the folks that are in the business of administering these programs.

I would also say to the gentleman, I think the gentleman knows our position on that bill. It doesn't create any jobs. Right now, we are in the business of trying to see how we can get people back to work, for an America that works for more people, and I would say to the gentleman, I look forward to joining him and focusing on that.

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

I am informed by the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee that we also have a letter from the Secretary of Labor, or one of the people that works with him, indicating that, in fact, they believe this would be workable. But very frankly, notwithstanding the letters, let me ask the majority leader: If, in fact, we made it prospective--which, of course, would clearly be workable--and made it 5 months prospectively, rather than 3 or 3.5 months retrospectively and a month and a half prospectively, as you know, through May 30, would that be an acceptable alternative, Mr. Majority Leader?

Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I would say back to the gentleman, it is my opinion that what the gentleman asked for is a continuance of the status quo.

We want to get people back to work. We are in the business of job creation. We want to provide a better environment for businesses to hire folks. We want to help those folks who are chronically unemployed access the skills necessary to fill the job openings today. As the gentleman knows--and I am sure his district is not unlike mine and many others--there are a lot of job openings that are left open because the workforce doesn't have access to proper training and skills.

I look forward to joining with the gentleman in looking towards the future and to how we can help those who are out of work get a job.

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

But it seems to me that it begs the question. The question is, yes, we want to get people back to work. Everybody on this floor wants to get people back to work. I don't think there is any doubt about that. Hopefully we would be at full employment, however one defines that--whether it is 3 percent, 4 percent unemployment, which would be transition employment or unemployment. But yes, we want to have everybody back to work.

The issue that I ask about, Mr. Speaker, is that if we don't get everybody back to work--and we haven't gotten everybody back to work. There were 192,000 new jobs created this past month. That is good, but it is

not good enough. And that is why we have a continuing 6.7 percent unemployment rate.

Mr. Speaker, my question to the majority leader was to assume, for argument, that the letter to which he refers is accurate. I don't accept that premise. But accepting that premise for the minute, would the majority leader be amenable to, rather than to do as the Senate does, making it retrospective so that the 3.5 months that would have gone from December 29 of last year to today and paying that back, simply extending for 5 months while people continue to look for employment but have been unable to find it because there are three times as many people looking for jobs as there are jobs available--and we are adding 72,000 people on a weekly basis to the unemployed roles. So if we made it prospective, that would save an awful lot of people the pain and suffering that they are experiencing because they can't find a job.

I yield to my friend.

Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman that what we are amenable to is looking to try to fix the problem. I would also refer the gentleman to the fact that the emergency unemployment insurance that the gentleman speaks of was in place for the longest time, I am told, in history, and that it was in place for an emergency.

As the gentleman well knows, we have in place 6 months of unemployment insurance benefits for those who are out of work. I know that what those who are out of work beyond that, who are deemed chronically unemployed, want most is an opportunity to get back to work. That is where I believe we ought to focus our efforts and really help people get back into a job so that they can support themselves, their families, and create a better future.

So I hope the gentleman will join us in refocusing away from accepting the status quo as the new norm and, instead, try to enhance the prospects for the pursuit of happiness for more people. And we are about an America that works for everybody, including those who are chronically unemployed.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for his comments. As he knows, we have an agenda to do just that. It is called Make It In America, to expand manufacturing, create the kinds of jobs where people can make good salaries, have good benefits, and have good security for the long term. There is no disagreement on that, Mr. Speaker. The only disagreement seems to be, while we are trying to get that done, whether or not we try to assure that those who have fallen through the cracks do not find themselves in dire circumstances because we have eliminated the safety net that we constructed.

I would say to the gentleman, this is the longest time in history--and we are going to hear a lot of information from members of the Ways and Means Committee--the longest time in history that we have had this level of long-term unemployment. One of the reasons for that is, obviously, the dislocations in the marketplace and that we experienced the deepest recession that anybody--maybe Ralph Hall is an exception--that anybody in this body has experienced.

In other words, the last time we had as deep a recession as we had at the end of the last administration that carried over into this administration was the deep Depression, and you have to be 90 years or older to have really remembered and experienced that.

So there is a lot of pain out there. All I am saying is we agree there is no disagreement. We want to get people to work. We want to take actions that give them the skills.

As I have told you--and we haven't done this as vigorously, and that is as much my fault as anybody--I want to do that. You were focused on your SKILLS Act. Clearly, we want to make sure people have the skills to get employment.

I would hope that we could look at--assuming the Senate passes this bill--to give relief to 2.8 million people who are in dire straits, increasing by 72,000 a week, give them some support while we are trying and, hopefully together, create the kind of jobs and skills necessary to get them out of the hole that they are in.

If I might note, there are 193 Democrats who have signed a discharge petition to bring the unemployment insurance to the floor. If I might do one other issue, last week, we had the sustainable growth rate. We extended it. We worked together to get that done.

Without going into it at length, I know the gentleman and I have had discussions about the sustainable growth rate, the so-called doc fix. We put a temporary patch on it.

That was, in my opinion, the wrong thing to do. It was the right thing to do temporarily, but it was the wrong thing to do. The gentleman knows that fixing the sustainable growth rate is now, from a scorable standpoint, less expensive to do than it has been in over 5 years.

I would hope that, Mr. Leader, working together, that we could address this issue at some time before this Congress adjourns sine die. We need to fix this, and we need to fix it permanently.

I yield to my friend.

Mr. CANTOR. Mr. Speaker, we, too, would like to see the SGR overhaul replaced with something that works. Our
Physician's Caucus on the majority side of the aisle has put a lot of work into this issue, together with the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee, have come up with a plan, as the gentleman knows, that had bipartisan support.

The problem is how to pay for it, and as I think the gentleman would agree, we can't go and continue to incur costs without finding out ways to pay for it, and that seems to continue to vex--many of the problems around here are trying to discover bipartisan pay-fors.

We made a commitment to continue to work with those Members who are most engaged in this issue and look forward to continue working with the gentleman to try to find those pay-fors, so we can put in place a long-term plan to give some certainty to our providers under Medicare.

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his comments, and I look forward to working with him. I would observe, as he well knows, and I have discussed with the Speaker, the pay-fors that were included in the temporary patch were as elusory as any other pay-for we could find.

We simply accelerated dollars. We didn't have due dollars. We didn't really pay for it. We just simply put the debt off a month or so and collected the money early and pretended that that was going to pay for it.

Whether that is any more real than doing any of the other options that have been suggested, I think, is questionable, but I look forward to working with the gentleman.

Because I mention it every time, but I want to mention it in a slightly different context, I will bring up comprehensive immigration reform again. The majority leader says it is a broken system. We all agree on that, and we ought to move forward.

We are going to be considering the budget. The budget, we don't think is paid for. We will have a discussion about that as we go down. We think it increases the deficits; it is not balanced in 10 years.

But that aside, comprehensive immigration reform, the CBO released its score on our bill H.R. 15, which we think is a bipartisan bill, found it would reduce the deficit by $900 billion over the next 2 decades, including $200 billion over the first 10 years.

Therefore, comprehensive immigration reform, in our opinion, is not only the right thing to do, it is economically the smart thing to do. That is in the context of a bill that was brought to the floor this week that increases the deficit by nearly $74 billion, dealing with the ACA.

It is a bit ironic that, during the time of enormous deficits, that we have been unwilling to bring to the floor a bill that is scored by CBO as close to a trillion dollars positive reduction of our deficit in the coming 20 years. I would hope that we could look at that.

As I say, it is not only the right thing to do, but it is supported across the board, the bill that the Senate passed by a 68-32 margin, supported by the Chamber of Commerce, supported by the AFL-CIO, supported by growers, farmers, ag interests, as well as farm workers, supported by the faith community across the board, and supported by 70-plus percent of the American people.

You would think, in the context of that broad base of support, that we could bring a bill which has such positive affects for human beings, for individuals, and for our country, as well as a positive economic affect.

I would hope, very sincerely, that once we get past the budget and come back after the Easter break, that we address comprehensive immigration reform.

I yield to my friend if he has any comments.

Mr. CANTOR. I would just say to the gentleman, as he knows, both the Speaker, I, and others have said we reject the comprehensive approach taken by the Senate.

Also, as the gentleman correctly states, we are in favor of trying to fix a very broken, antiquated, legal immigration system, as well as trying to do something to stop illegal immigration. We just have an issue about the President's insistence on, first of all, saying it is his way or the highway.

Secondly, the gentleman and I have talked before about the growing frustration that many Americans have, as well as Members on our side of the aisle, about the seeming disregard for the law by this administration in selectively implementing laws that have passed, specifically as it relates to the Affordable Care Act.

How would one know provisions that will be upheld, implemented, executed in whole or not, given this situation surrounding the ACA? Those are the kinds of challenges we face.

I would also note to the gentleman that the kind of thing that he refers to, comprehensive immigration, we reject that notion that the Senate bill, and we reject comprehensive efforts that have been undertaken over the last several years because they haven't worked so well.

Instead, we should be looking to try and do the things that we agree on. What about border security--border security itself? If we can agree to say that is going to be our position, we are not negotiating on a comprehensive bill, that we have to take care of that.

What about the kids? The gentleman knows I am very focused on trying to do something that we can agree on,

but without saying that that has to be a precursor to something that the President insists, or otherwise, we can't even have the discussion.

So, again, we have got a lot of issues with regards to immigration. I would say to the gentleman I understand his frustration. I think that we have plenty of people who are also frustrated, given how things have gone with this White House.

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

I want to say on border security, H.R. 15, we refer to as a comprehensive bill, as you know, included the border security provision passed out of the Homeland Security Committee, chaired by your Republican chairman, passed out on a voice vote, essentially unanimously, is included in our bill.

So, on the border security issue, we apparently have a very broad-based agreement on that issue. The gentleman says you want to do it individually. The gentleman knows that the Judiciary Committee has passed out individual, discrete bills dealing with discrete parts of the immigration issue, what you say is a broken system.

Bring out discretely those bills. The bill that the Homeland Security reported out unanimously has not been brought to the floor. The four bills that have been reported out of the Judiciary Committee have not been brought up to the floor. They were passed months and months and months ago.

So that if you don't want to do a comprehensive--if that is the view of the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, then I would suggest to the majority leader that he bring out discrete bills, individual bills, not comprehensive, and see if we can deal with those.

I will tell you our disappointment also is that it was not only the Senate bill that was rejected, but the Speaker put out some principles with respect to comprehensive--or immigration reform, I won't call it comprehensive, put out some principles.

We received those positively. We thought that was a positive step. Unfortunately, those--the Speaker's proposal were rejected apparently by a very large number of your party in and outside of this institution. As a result, 6 days after he issued the principles, he said that they were not going to be pursued.

Yes, we were frustrated and disappointed with that because we thought the Speaker had taken a positive step forward. I don't know whether the majority leader was, Mr. Speaker, part of those principles, but in any event, we accepted them as good-faith efforts to come to an agreement, and we were prepared to pursue discussions on those principles. Unfortunately, as I say, the Speaker withdrew them.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to yield back the balance of my time, unless the majority leader wants me to yield to him.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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