mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman for his recommitment to that proposition. let me ask the gentleman, therefore, given the fact, am i correct, that you do not believe that tax cuts, the 2001 and 2003 extension of the tax cuts, need to be paid for, is that still your position? mr. cantor: mr. speaker, again the question has to do with the gentleman and his side and the president's insistence that somehow the math requires us to raise taxes on small business men and women. we don't believe that. we don't believe that we ought to let tax rates go up and create a tax hike on the small businesspeople of this country. because, number one that exacerbates the challenge that we are already dealing with in trying to get this economy growing, and number two, it will put more money into the hands of washington to begin to start spending that money without paying down the debt. 7 the gentleman knows very well -- the gentleman knows very well our commitment to make sure we get our fiscal house in order. he k

and even on that score mr. hoyer said mr. van hollen did there was a further compromise that could have been made that addressed some of the needs of the republicans to vote for this bill without doing more harm to the -- as mr. hoyer said, the recruitment, the retention of public employees the best public employees to help implement our laws and i want to salute all of them for their patriotic duty to our country, to keep us safe in every possible way, to allow commerce to proceed in a very positive way. but now let's get back to why this is important, this victory for the middle class. this was a fight. why should it have been a fight? there's something out there in the public the ground troops the common sense coming up from the ground that this was an important thing to do, and the american people overwhelmingly supported it. there's a ground truth out there from the public, common sense coming up from the ground that in order for us to do -- meet our needs and also reduce the deficit that we should have a surcharge on th

and even on that score mr. hoyer said mr. van hollen did there was a further compromise that could have been made that addressed some of the needs of the republicans to vote for this bill without doing more harm to the -- as mr. hoyer said, the recruitment, the retention of public employees the best public employees to help implement our laws and i want to salute all of them for their patriotic duty to our country, to keep us safe in every possible way, to allow commerce to proceed in a very positive way. but now let's get back to why this is important, this victory for the middle class. this was a fight. why should it have been a fight? there's something out there in the public the ground troops the common sense coming up from the ground that this was an important thing to do, and the american people overwhelmingly supported it. there's a ground truth out there from the public, common sense coming up from the ground that in order for us to do -- meet our needs and also reduce the deficit that we should have a surcharge on th

mr. hoyer: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for one minute for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman is recognized. mr. hoyer: i now yield to my friend, mr. cantor, the majority leader. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman from maryland, the democratic whip, for yielding. mr. hoyer: mr. speaker, the house is not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct. the house is not in order. would all members please take their conversations from the floor, clear the well, clear the aisles. find a seat or exit the chamber. the gentleman is recognized. mr. cantor: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman from maryland, democratic whip, for yielding. mr. speaker, on monday the house will meet at 1:00 p.m. in pro forma session. no votes are expected. on tuesday, the house will meet at noon for morning hour and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. votes will be pos

mr. hoyer: mr. speaker, i think certainly that all of us hopefully agree with what the leader has just said. we clearly want to make sure the american public has confidence and trust in the actions we take and are not driven by personal interests but by public interest, by a concern of the welfare of the >> nevada is holding its republican caucuses today. we expect to start hearing results that it o'clock eastern time. the ap reports that mitt romney looks heading for a second straight victory in a state that has been relatively quiet. they're unemployed married is the highest in the country. mitt romney and newt gingrich will be an las vegas and we will bring you more tonight. so far on facebook we have heard from betty who thinks nobody will drop out but wishes mitt romney and ron paul would. kevin rights as a republican he is embarrassed by the field and it finds the lesser of two peoples to be the democratic candidate. >> by 2016 according to the imf, the world's leading the economy will be a co

and even on that score mr. hoyer said mr. van hollen did there was a further compromise that could have been made that addressed some of the needs of the republicans to vote for this bill without doing more harm to the -- as mr. hoyer said, the recruitment, the retention of public employees the best public employees to help implement our laws and i want to salute all of them for their patriotic duty to our country, to keep us safe in every possible way, to allow commerce to proceed in a very positive way. but now let's get back to why this is important, this victory for the middle class. this was a fight. why should it have been a fight? there's something out there in the public the ground troops the common sense coming up from the ground that this was an important thing to do, and the american people overwhelmingly supported it. there's a ground truth out there from the public, common sense coming up from the ground that in order for us to do -- meet our needs and also reduce the deficit that we should have a surcharge on th

mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. but what we should not do is pretend that we're going to balance the budget by undermining middle-class workers, middle-class workers who work for in my opinion the finest country on earth and who give excellent service, extraordinary service to the people of this country and who per capita are much -- are fewer than they were 20 years ago per capita. if the gentleman has time i'll be glad to answer on his time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. hoyer: we ought to have a bill, we ought to pass mr. van hollen's bill, we ought to take this out of the politics and then if i could get another 10 seconds -- mr. cummings: i grant the gentleman another 10 seconds. mr. hoyer: then i tell my friends what we ought to do is pass the big deal. we ought to pass a $4 trillion to $6 trillion big deal to get the fiscal house in order of the united states of america. and it ought to include all things on the table, including federal employee pay and benefits, including the

mr. hoyer. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from maryland, the democratic whip, is recognized for three minutes. mr. hoyer: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank my friend, the ranking member of the budget committee, chris van hollen, from maryland, for yielding. i unfortunately have not been able to listen to all of the debate. but i've listened to enough of it. this week we're paying -- we're playing let's pretend. we're playing the game of let's pretend that if we solve the process, we'll solve the problem. there was an excellent article that i think everybody ought to read. stan collingder who is a real expert on the budget process, and who has been involved in this budget process for a long, long period of time, quotes in an article that he wrote that i hope most of you read in "roll call". he quotes rudy pener. rudy pener was the director of c.b.o. not a partisan individual in my view. i've had the opportunity of dealing with for some period of time. his quote is, a process, no matter how

mr. hoyer: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for one minute for the purpose of inquiring of the majority leader the schedule for the week to come. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. the gentleman is recognized. mr. hoyer: i thank the speaker. i'm pleased to yield to my friend, mr. can'ter, the -- mr. cantor, the majority leader. mr. cantor: i thank the gentleman from maryland, the democratic whip for yielding. mr. hoyer: mr. speaker, i want to hear the majority leader if we could have the house in order. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. mr. cantor: thank you, mr. speaker. i thank the gentleman from maryland, the democratic whip, for yielding. mr. speaker, on monday the house will meet at noon for morning hour and 2:00 p.m. for legislative business. votes will be postponed until 6:30 p.m. on tuesday and wednesday, the house will meet at 10:00 a.m. for morning hour and noon for legislative business. on thursday, the house will meet at 9:00 a.m. for

mr. hoyer: mr. speaker, i think certainly that all of us hopefully agree with what the leader has just said. we clearly want to make sure the american public has confidence and trust in the actions we take and are not driven by personal terests but by public interest, by a concern of the welfare of the >> sunday, steve israel of new york on the strategy to win 25 more seats to take control of the house of representatives. that is at 10:00 a.m. on c-span and c-span radio. >> the u.s. labor department reported that 243,000 new jobs were added in january, dropping the unemployment rate to 8.3%. now remarks from president obama. he spoke at fire station no. 5 in virginia. this is about 25 minutes. [applause] >> thank you. thank you. thank you so much. >> good morning, everybody. thank you for that introduction. thank you for your extraordinary service to our country. i want to acknowledge outstanding members of my cabinet who are here today. the secretary of veterans affairs, secretary shinseki, is in t

mr. hoyer: i thank the gentleman. but what we should not do is pretend that we're going to balance the budget by undermining middle-class workers, middle-class workers who work for in my opinion the finest country on earth and who give excellent service, extraordinary service to the people of this country and who per capita are much -- are fewer than they were 20 years ago per capita. if the gentleman has time i'll be glad to answer on his time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. hoyer: we ought to have a bill, we ought to pass mr. van hollen's bill, we ought to take this out of the politics and then if i could get another 10 seconds -- mr. cummings: i grant the gentleman another 10 seconds. mr. hoyer: then i tell my friends what we ought to do is pass the big deal. we ought to pass a $4 trillion to $6 trillion big deal to get the fiscal house in order of the united states of america. and it ought to include all things on the table, including federal employee pay and benefits, including the

mr. hoyer: mr.think certainly that all of us hopefully agree with what the leader has just said. we clearly want to make sure the american public has confidence and trust in the actions we take and are not driven by personal interests but by public interest, by a concern of the welfare of the >> earlier today, lawmakers passed a measure that changes the federal budgeting process. also approving a conference report that sets federal aviation programs for the next four years. follow the house live as always here on c-span. >> nevada's gop caucuses are tomorrow. watch the road for the white house coverage live tomorrow night and throughout the day. live reports on the individual caucuses and their results to we party -- ande gop their results tweeted. >> next, nato officials meet in the brussels in which to finance the afghan security forces after the transfer of power. all partners are still committed to the 2014 transfer of power timetable set for that country. this is 15 minutes. >> good afternoon.

roth did that whole year that director general of the european organization for nuclear research mr hoyer one of the main tasks one of the great mysteries that the collider has to solve and everybody is expecting that is the is the higgs boson on i mean i mean the existence of the higgs boson well what makes you sure and i know that you are sure that this mystery will be so very soon . yes you see we know everything about this famous he explores on the part of the stone armada we know everything all its properties the only thing we don't know is if it exists ok so that's a slight problem however because we know its properties if it exists then we know how many collisions we need in the large hadron collider in order to significantly point your was this expose on so i can predict depending on the way the collider is working when the view of this can give an answer on the shakespeare question of this expose on to be on not to be and what does the discovery or not of this elementary particle mean for the scientific picture of the world for the for the further research well first of all if if

i was wondering if anyone in the room who might have had dialog with mr. hoyer might have any comments at this time? or if he sent anybody to speak on his behalf? no one? okay. at this time, i feel it appropriate as president of the organization to speak and to say that i believe this organization has a collective interest in ensuring fair and honesty elections and i believe that policy disagreements and elections and i believe that policy disagreements and discussions are healthy and inevitable, however, the blanket letter to all members of this organization is not. his stating that "partisan plays" are being made, that within itself is partisan. disorganization is not partisan. we all take oaths to follow the laws that are created by our legislative bodies not to follow preferences of either party's philosophy as they relate to voting or any other dealing of the oft of secretary of state. our laws and preferences will vary from state to state but we as an organization need to send a loud and clear message that our ability and integrity to follow the law and ad

i don't know, there may have been some inference tosses be drawn from stories but mr. hoyer and i always had a partnership. we were not just a team. we were a participantship. i know it's grist for the milan people had fun interpreting one thing or another but the kind of story that i think is out there now on the other side is they couldn't even decide to walk into a room. why that's interesting to me is we need jobs legislation and we don't need anything to stand in the way of that job creation. >> so some of the political intrigue taking place on the house side of capitol hill. nancy pelosi, the democratic leader in the house of representatives responding to a story front and center morning still available at politico.com discussing the relationship and a sometimes rocky relationship between eric kantor's staff and speaker of the haas, yuan boehner's staff. it looks like the stalk act is on its way to becoming the law of the land passing the senate by a vote of 96-3. the legislation on its way to the house of representatives. in a statement the president saying "last week

cummings and i, mr. hoyer and others, have introduced legislation to do just that. it's hr-3858. the democratic leadership asked that we be able to bring that up on the suspension calendar today. we were denied that opportunity. and so i now ask unanimous consent that after we complete debate on this bill we add to today's suspension calendar hr-3858 so that we can vote as a body on freezing congressional pay. >> is there objection to the gentleman's unanimous consent agreement? >> i do object to unanimous consent. >> madam speaker, this illustrates the point exactly. we just heard mr. duffy -- >> the gentleman will sa pend. under the guidelines consistently issued by successive speakers as recorded on page 752 of the house rules manual the chair is constrained not to entertain the gentleman's request unless it has been cleared by the bipartisan floor and committee leaderships. >> we have been denied that opportunity by the republican leadership so i want to be clear, we were denied the opportunity today to have an up over down vote on freezing congressional pay. that's what we s

mr. hoyer: madam speaker, i yield myself five minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. hoyer: thank you madam speaker. i've taken the unusual process of claiming time in opposition to this bill. i have done so so i could place in context the bill we are considering. i do not rise to necessarily defeat this bill. i'm going to vote against this bill. i am for almost all of this bill. what we are funding this bill with was unnecessary unfair and ought to be rejected. i want to say at the outset that my friend mr. camp, and i had a very positive discussion. i believe that mr. camp and i could have reached an agreement which would have put me in support of this legislation. we didn't get there. we tried late in the game and we didn't get there. i regret that. i think mr. camp tried. i know that everybody on my side would have supported the agreement that mr. van hollen and i put forward. that agreement would, as the current agreement would say that the only

mr. hoyer: mr. van hollen, in fact not for political gamesmanship, want to vote to restrain and eliminate their cola, this year, they have an opportunity to do that segregated from any other issue on the previous question. i would urge members if they want to cap congressional salaries next year at current levels, they vote against the previous question when it is called. i yield back to my friend. mr. van hollen: i thank mr. hoyer. with respect to the two bills that are subject of this rule, we are going to have more time to debate them later. i would just say to my friend from georgia, mr. woodall, that the american people would love to be able to wish away inflation. i came from a hearing in the budget committee, i'm sure the chairman of the federal reserve would like to wish away inflation. what the gentleman's proposing is that we put together a budget that, unfortunately, would get more and more misleading over time. a baseline for our budget, because it would simply wish away inflation. with

mr. hoyertion with respect to the two pieces of legislation and the suspension bills. if i might inquire, mr. leader, of the timing of the conference committee has met, as all of us know, a few times since being appointed on december 23. they were supposed to have a meeting today but apparently that meeting was canceled. we adopt add motion to instruct conferees on january 18 with only -- adopted a motion to instruct conferees on january 18 with only 16 republicans opposing and a few republicans opposing this time on a similar motion to instruct urging the conferees to report back by february 17. you know as well as anybody we will be off for president's week , work period, and we will not be back until the night of the 27th which only gives us the two days and that evening to pass this bill if we do not pass it before the 17th. in december we almost, as you well know, did not extend the payroll tax holiday or the unemployment or the s.g.r. package. that would have resulted as the gentleman kno

[laughter] >> i was wondering if anyone in the room who might have had dialog with mr. hoyer might have any comments at this time or if he sent anybody to speak on his behalf? no one? okay. at this time, i feel it appropriate as president of the organization to speak and to say that i believe this organization has a collective interest in ensuring fair and honest elections. and i believe that policy disagreements and discussions are healthy and inevitable. however, whip hoyer's blanket letter from 196 members of his party to all members of this organization is not. his stating that, quote, partisan plays, end of quote, are being made, that within itself is partisan. disorganization is not partisan. we all take oaths in our states to follow the laws that are created by our legislative bodies, not to follow preferences of either political party's philosophy as they relate to voting or any other dealings of the office of secretary of state. our laws and our preferences will always vary from state to state but we as an organization need to send a loud and clear message that our a

i support the actions of mr. hoyer who has been a leader on this mr. van hollen, mr. cardin, to name a few -- a couple of the conferees plus our distinguished whip who has been a champion for our federal employees. they do great work for our country. we all have to make sacrifices in this. they should not carry an undue burden especially when we have an alternative which is called our war savings to cover this. >> [inaudible question] >> i will leave that to you to ask him about his style and his change. i'm just glad that the american people that the drumbeat that president obama created across the country -- remember public sentiment is everything, and the public overwhelmingly supported a payroll tax cut for 160 million americans. the public overwhelmingly supported that we have unemployment compensation and the rest of the package. the payroll tax, since you confined it to that, the payroll tax cut unpaid for in response to the argument we are making, why are we paying for this when we don't pay for tax cuts for the wealthiest people in our country? i just think t