Date: 2013-05-17
Speaker: VAN HOLLEN (democrat)
Chamber: H

I thank my friend from Massachusetts. There has been a lot of talk on the floor this morning about the sequester and the negative impact its having on the economy. I would remind my colleagues. as my friend from Massachusetts did. that on four occasions the House Democrats have tried to bring to this floor for a vote a bill that would replace the sequester. end the disruption. and end the job loss that the Congressional Budget Office says is coming with the sequester. This morning were going to ask this House to take a simple vote on another resolution. and Im going to read it because its really simple. It says: Resolved. that it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Speaker should follow regular House procedure and immediately request a conference and appoint conferees to negotiate a fiscal year 2014 budget resolution agreement with the United States Senate. Now. we all stood on this floor and heard our Republican colleagues criticize the United States Senate for 3 years because they did not have a budget. Well. guess what? The United States Senate passed a budget more than 53 days ago. But now whats happened is the Speaker of this House has refused to go to conference to negotiate a final budget. We heard for weeks and weeks the mantra. "No budget. no pay." Apparently. that was a meaningless cry because as of right now there is no Federal budget and Members of the House and the Senate are still getting paid. Did you mean it or did you not mean it? 1l 1000 We heard complaints about how the Presidents budget was late this year. Guess what. Mr. Speaker? We are now way overdue in getting a resolution out of conference committee. If you look at the statute. the law. on the budget. it says the House and Senate are supposed to have completed conference action by April 15. We are way overdue. And the only reason we are overdue is because this House and the Speaker of this House refuses to appoint conferees. The Senate Democrats on eight occasions. Mr. Speaker. have asked for unanimous consent in the Senate to go to conference. and they have been blocked over there. It is getting to be a little embarrassing to some of the Republican Senators. I just want to show you a quote from Senator MCCAIN just the other day: "I think its insane for Republicans. who complained for 4 years about HARRY REID not having a budget and now were not going to agree to conferees. That is beyond comprehension for me." And guess what. Mr. Speaker? This is getting beyond comprehension to the American people. saying one thing and doing another. Heres some other Republican Senators: Senator BOOZMAN: "I think we need to go to conference." Senator WICKER: "I would say by the end of next week"-thats this coming week-"we probably should be ready to go to conference." Senator COBURN: "Im okay with going right now." And on and on. You would think our House Republican colleagues would begin to feel a little sense of that embarrassment as well. given the fact that they called for years to get a budget done and now are standing in the way of getting that exact budget done. In fact. the Speaker of this House on multiple occasions has said we should go to conference on the budget. that thats how we resolve things in the regular order. Heres what the Speaker said on "Meet the Press" back in March when we were all putting together our budgets. the Senate was putting together a budget and the House was putting together a budget: "Its time for us to get back to regular order here in Congress. When the House passes a bill. the Senate passes a bill. and if we disagree. we go to conference to resolve those differences." The Speaker said this on multiple occasions. I just want to read again from the resolution Im asking this House to vote on this morning. It says simply: Resolved. that it is the sense of the House that the Speaker should follow regular House procedure and appoint the conferees that he told the country on national television he would do in order to make sure that we get on with the fundamental business of this country and pass a Federal budget. Not just a House budget. not just a Senate budget. Those things are meaningless by themselves. Youve got to get a Federal budget. It turns out that this "no budget. no pay" thing was really just a kind of "winkwink" knowing. hey. the House can pass a budget. the Senate can pass a budget. but it doesnt actually get the job done. Mr. Speaker. I just ask. let us have a vote to appoint conferees to get on with the Nations business.