Transcript of Pelosi, House Democratic Leaders Press Conference
Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, Assistant Democratic Leader James E. Clyburn, House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra, Congressman Steve Israel, and Congressman Chris Van Hollen held a press conference calling on House Republicans to put an end to their government shutdown. Below are the Leader's opening remarks, followed by the question and answer session:
Leader Pelosi. Good morning, everyone. We have some news for you today, which is what we think we have every day but you don't always agree.
[Laughter]
Sadly, today marks the fifth day of the Republican Government Shutdown. This crisis could be over in hours if the Speaker and the Republicans would just take ‘yes' for an answer instead of continuing to be the party of ‘no.' On seven different occasions the Republican Party of ‘no' has not taken ‘yes' for an answer of Democrats offering motions on the Senate passed Republican number of $986 [billion] but Republicans have said ‘no' each time.
To end the Republican shutdown, 200 Members, 200 House Democrats have signed their names to a letter reaffirming our commitment to support a clean continuing resolution on the $988 [billion] Republican number. This hasn't been easy for our Members. But in order to open government, they are willing to do so. And on the Republican side, one by one Republican Members have come forward to say they're willing to vote to reopen government by supporting the clean funding bill. Right now, enough Republicans have publicly stated their support for a bill that could pass and be on the President's desk today. We're asking the Speaker in our letter to bring up a vote to the floor for those Republicans and more to show that there is a bipartisan majority to end the Republican Government Shutdown.
If that were not newsworthy enough that 200 Democrats have signed a letter and others who will vote with us – but some just philosophically don't sign letters, I want to add this. At the beginning of this year, the Speaker said he wanted regular order. He said that at the White House. He said that all along he wanted regular order. And that regular order means that when the House passes a bill, which it did, and the Senate passes a bill, which it has. Then you go to conference. And then he said, after that he said, "under the rule" – and that's how he he didn't appoint conferees. And our question was: "Mr. Speaker, why are you not appointing conferees to the budget conference?"
His statement was: "Under the rules if you appoint conferees and after 20 legislative days there is no agreement, the minority has the right to offer motions to instruct, which become politically motivated bombs to throw up on the House floor. So to be frank with all of you, we're following what I would describe as a regular order." Well to be frank with him, the regular order is not how he defines it. It is what the regular order is of the House. In fact, at this point under the rules, any Member would have the privilege to bring up the senate position. Mr. Van Hollen spoke to that issue on the floor the other day.
So, in public and otherwise, the Speaker has said that his concern is the motion to instruct. Today, we standing here are making an unprecedented offer by the minority to the majority, to the Speaker of the House: if you will agree to pass a short term bill and move the conference, the final budget discussion for this fiscal year, we will not offer any motions to instruct. This is news my friends. Please recognize it as such. The speaker has said that's his concern, we want to take that concern off the table.
So today, we are giving Republicans yet another opportunity to end their shutdown, the very opportunity that the Speaker has been asking for. We have accepted their number, as unpleasant as that is for us to do. We have agreed not to offer motions to instruct and we have voted to pay the federal employees for not working. Why don't we pay them for working by opening government? We can have it open over this weekend, certainly in full force by Monday.
Our public employees want to work, the American people want the government to be open, it's in everyone's interest that the Speaker accept our offer of 200 votes, nearly 200 votes-all they need is a couple dozen Republican votes and our offer not to offer motions to instruct. We have substantially accepted what they are offering we have procedurally tried to accommodate and allay their concerns. Let's open government. Give us a vote, Mr. Speaker.
And now I am pleased to yield to the distinguished Democratic Whip, Mr. Hoyer.
Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer. Thank you very much, Leader Pelosi. This is an important tool of the minority, a motion to instruct, or for that matter for anybody else in the House, to tell the conference committee what they ought to do. The Speaker has expressed, however, a concern about that. I think his concern is inconsistent with his discussion about the House working its will and the transparency that Republicans want to bring to the house, but not withstanding that and not withstanding how important this device is to the minority and the majority we are through the leader – saying that we will not do that.
Because if that's the concern, that he believes politics is going to be played with this, we have no intention of doing that. And I want to congratulate Leader Pelosi for informing the Speaker and the Republican side of the aisle that that ought not to be and should not be and will not be a concern of them or a reason for them to delay going to conference on the budget.
We are now in the fifth day, as the Leader has said, of a shutdown. We have just voted to pay the employees, as we should have. The American public wants their government open. The Speaker needs to bring a bill to the floor and the letter that the Leader has referred to with 200 Democrats on it, indicates that clearly, in my view right now, there are enough people to pass a government opening funding bill. And we will do so at the Republican suggested number of dollars. So there's no disagreement, no argument about dollars. Democrats are united and ready to help end this shutdown by voting for the Senate's bill which puts the people's government back to work.
Republicans have voted, unfortunately, seven times to block the Senate's bill to reopen government from the House floor. While I am pleased that the House has just voted to restore pay as I have said, it's time to get them back to work as well. Democrats have already compromised by accepting the funding level. We are ready to go to conference on a budget as we have been for months. And in fact the Speaker says, the President has said, many have said we need an agreement. Mr. Van Hollen is going to outline the very significant issues that need to be discussed in the conference committee, major issues and major differences.
I will leave that to Mr. Van Hollen to discuss but I want to thank the Leader for taking this initiative with which all of us agree because it is critical for our national security, for our economy, and for the confidence of the American people that we get their government back to work, working for them as we discuss differences between the two parties and reaching compromise which is so essential in any democracy. And now let me yield to my friend the Assistant Leader Mr. Clyburn, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina.
Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn. I thank the Whip for yielding and Madame Leader, distinguished colleagues. We have spent the better part of this week doing something that I don't believe should be the prerogative of the Members of Congress. We are picking winners and losers. That to me is very unfortunate. It's unfortunate because Brian Cater, a name we have all gotten to know, may not be the face of what we're doing here this week but he is in fact the storyline.
Brian Carter was seriously injured two days ago because he was protecting the Members of Congress, protecting us from elements which we may not get a chance to know. Unfortunately, Brian was working providing that protection for no pay. That to me is a storyline of what this is all about. I spoke with Brian several times. He does not want us to be supporting him over his spouse and his siblings. We just voted to give him back pay when all of this comes to a close, but what are we doing for this spouse and his siblings?
He does not feel comfortable thinking that we are taking care of him, but we are not providing educational needs and services to his children and grandchildren. Congress ought not to be in the business of picking winners and losers. And certainly we ought not to be doing things that pit family against family, and with that I would like to yield to the Chair of our Budget Committee, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
Congressman Chris Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Clyburn. And I want to start with a point that Leader Pelosi made, about the action that we took today in the House of Representatives because I think we all agree that no one should be made to suffer for actions that are no fault of their own. So, it was totally appropriate that the House of Representatives insure that dedicated federal workers who are among the many innocent victims of the government shutdown will be held harmless in the long run, that was the right thing to do. But that important measure highlights the sheer folly of the current government shutdown.
We want to make sure these people are paid. But they want to get back to doing what they love, which is working on behalf of the public. And so if we're going to be providing the pay as we should, we should also have them come back to work, which is why we've been saying all along we should vote today to reopen the federal government and bring all those federal employees back to work. If you look at what Republicans have been doing they've been saying: "let's fund the National Park Service" or "let's fund FEMA." But today their proposal didn't just say: "let's just give back pay to folks at the National Park Service." It didn't say: "let's just give back pay to people at FEMA." It said: "let's make sure all fed employees are held harmless lets give back pay to all federal employees."
So, why aren't they bringing up a bill on the floor that allows all federal employees to get to work serving the American people? It makes absolutely no sense at all. The American people are paying for these important services. We want to make sure that every federal employee gets back to work to be able to do their job and that's what federal employees want to be able to do. And the way to do that is to have a vote right now to end the government shutdown.
Now as my colleagues have said, ever since March we have been really clear that we want to negotiate on the budget. We have on three occasions here in the House called for a vote for the Speaker to appoint budget negotiators so they can negotiate with the senate. On all three occasions, Speaker Boehner and the Republicans said ‘no.' They said ‘no' to negotiations on the budget. In the Senate, [Senator] Harry Reid and [Senator] Patty Murray, the Democratic Leader and the head of the Budget Committee, tried 18 times to appoint budget negotiators. And all 18 times Senator Ted Cruz and Senator Mike Lee and the Republicans said ‘no.' Senator McCain said it was irrational for them to say ‘no' but they said ‘no.'
And that's why we haven't had any budget conversations for months and months. Now as the Leader said and as the Whip said, we have been hearing one of the excuses for not moving forward is this notion that Democrats would exercise what are our rights – to offer motions to instruct. And just a few weeks ago in the Budget Committee during a hearing the Chairman of that committee, Paul Ryan, said that in fact they would move forward with budget negotiations if in fact their concerns were met. That was news to me, news to all of us. And so as the Leader said we're making news today by saying we will give up that right in order to do what we said we want to do from the beginning, negotiate on the budget.
Now, the last point I want to make is what those budget negotiations involve because Republicans have been totally mischaracterizing the President's statements. What the President has been saying is that he will not negotiate away the full faith and credit of the United States. In other words, Republicans can't say they will only do what they should do –work with us to pay the nations bills on time in order to get their Republican agenda through the House. That's not the way it works. We all share a responsibly, Republicans and Democrats alike, to pay our bills on time but yes let's negotiate on the budget.
They've got the budget that Chairman Ryan put forward. We think it is very harmful to the country. It cuts vital investments, it squeezes many seniors on Medicare, [and] it cuts Medicaid in many ways. It cuts Medicaid by almost $700 [billion] over ten years. That's their budget. What's our budget? We have a budget, House Democrats, Senate Democrats, the President has a budget. He's got an important plan in there to reinvest in the country to try to get the economy going even faster, accelerate job growth. He's got a jobs plan, major infrastructure investment, what else does he call for? He calls for replacing the sequester, right?
The sequester is eating away at vital investments in science and research, in infrastructure, in education. And according to the Congressional Budget Office, if the sequester remains in place, if that level remains in place, not just through November 15, but through this time next year, there will be up to 1.2 million fewer American jobs. And their best estimate is we'll have 800,000 fewer American jobs in this country. That wipes out the last four-plus-months of job growth in this country. That's a self-inflicted wound we can't afford.
So, that's part of the budget negotiation. What else is? We have a long-term plan to reduce the deficit, the long-term deficit, which is a very real thing, in a balanced way, right? As the President pointed out that the deficit has been cut in more than half over the last five years, but we know that we have to make progress on the long-term deficit, we have a plan to do that. It's a balanced plan, we ask for shared responsibility. We do ask that people who are making millions and millions of dollars a year get rid of some of their tax breaks.
So, I'm going to close here but our point is we want to have a budget negotiation. But that whole Republican wish list, their kitchen sink, they don't get to force that down the country's throat by threatening to default on our debts or threating to shut down the government. Those are things you negotiate with the Democrats and the President. And what I'm pointing out is we have what we think are important priorities for the country, on jobs on, replacing the sequester, on a balanced approach to long term deficit reduction. So we'll have that conversation between our budgets and we should do that in a conference committee but you don't get the Republican agenda in exchange for doing what every Member should do anyway, which is pay our nations bills on time. And with that, I want to turn it over to the terrific Chairman of our Caucus who has worked to make sure we are all on the same page, Xavier Becerra.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra. Thank you, Chris. The House of Representatives is not a sandbox. And this Republican shutdown of our government is serious. American people know that. They've been saying that since the Republican's shutdown our government on October 1st and what they're also telling us is its time for-no more excuses. They're saying we should stop acting like children in the House of Representatives. Now, the Republican Government Shutdown is not just serious, but it's also absurd. Someone try to explain to the American people today that Republicans decided to shut down government on October 1st and on October 5th, they decided to pay all those workers, those 800,000 workers that they told don't come into work. If it weren't so serious it really would be absurd what we find ourselves facing with this Republican Government Shutdown.
We're here to say what American people are saying all over the place: put America back to work, let the House of Representatives vote on a clean budget bill to put Americans back to work because the reality is what we should be focusing on as elected representatives of the people of this country is building a stronger middle class [and] creating more jobs. Not putting Americans out of work, not putting Americans in a state of anxiety as to whether or not they'll be able to pay their bills. Who thinks any one of our veterans in this country today wants to be part of the Republican gimmick of shutting down government where they are spared as veterans from the pain of a government shutdown while America's infants and children suffer the consequence of a government shutdown?
I don't think there's a veteran in America that would say: "Yeah take care of me and leave our children behind." But that's the gimmick that's being played today. Americans are telling us very clearly: will you please put your country before your party? If Republicans simply put themselves in the shoes of the American people they would understand. No small business in America on Main Street would run its operations the way the Republicans are running the House of Representatives.
And so, they're telling the Republican Conference: "Please stop running the largest economy in the world this way as well." Let America work, let congress vote for a clean budget bill to put Americans back to work, and then let's get to the business of building a stronger middle class.
With that let me yield now to the Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Steve Israel.
Congressman Steve Israel. Thank you. In this game of ping-pong that John Boehner is playing, his side of the ping-pong table is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. He keeps creating excuses not to vote, we keep taking those excuses away from him as we have today, and it's simply time to vote. Now, this weekend is going to be yet another moment of truth for John Boehner. Two hundred Democrats have signed a letter, that's 98 percent of our Caucus have signed a letter saying to the Speaker: "We are ready for a vote on a clean budget." And we have heard that there are between 20 and 22 Republicans who have said back home to their constituents that they are ready to vote for a clean budget.
And so, now it's time for them to put their voting cards where their promises are and we're going to hold them accountable today, tomorrow and next week. Those 20 to 22 Republican Members of Congress who are claiming that they will support a clean budget with no strings attached now have the opportunity to reopen this government. They now have the opportunity to hold to their promises and we're going to hold them accountable. You cannot act like an independent pit bull at home and then in Washington act like a Tea Party lap dog.
Those 20 to 22 Republicans who have said that they will vote with 98 percent of the Democrat Caucus to reopen the government without strings attached. This is their moment of truth. We have signed the letter, now it's up to them to do the same. I am actually hopefully. I really am hopeful that those 20 to 22 Republicans who have claimed to want to resolve this problem and pursue a solution are going to keep their word. Not to any of their colleagues, but to the constituents that they gave their word to. And we'll test out this proposition over the next several days. Thank you and I now yield to nobody because I'm the last speaker.
[Laugher]
Leader Pelosi. I thank all of my colleagues for their eloquent statements about what our purpose here is in terms of representing the American people and getting the job done for them, and what our budget priorities are. And thank you Mr. Van Hollen for working so hard on that over the years. And what our proposal is today. Here is the letter, these are three pages of names. We have the signatures as well, of the Members who have signed the letter. We have accepted their number.
I think it's important to note the President has accepted their number, the United States Senate has accepted the Republican number, [and] the Democrats in the House have accepted the Republican number. The only missing piece is the Republicans in the House accepting their own number. So, what is the problem? Well, if the issue is that you don't want to bring it up because once we go to the budget table we'll have motions to instruct, which you characterize in a way I wouldn't describe, but nonetheless, however you want to describe it we're not doing it.
We're not doing it, unprecedented offer on behalf a minority in this case, the Democrats to the Republicans. So important do we think it is to open government. And again, as our colleagues have said: "We're paying the bill." Now, let us put people back to work for the American people and for all of the purposes that the American people look to us.
Any questions?
***
Q: [Inaudible] Speaker Boehner to not use the motions to instruct?
Leader Pelosi. Yes I have.
Q: What was his response to you?
Leader Pelosi. Well, you probably should ask him but I think he knows it's a good faith effort on our part. I told him in the context of, "I want you to know that this is an offer that we're making to you and we're going to make this offer public." So, it wasn't like I was blindsiding him with it.
Q: This is a much larger question. We just came from a press conference with Republican leaders and we're at a press conference now. How much, is there any conversation going on in the background or behind the scenes between you guys and Republicans, today, tomorrow, anything planned?
Leader Pelosi. We just made the offer this morning to the Speaker and that's one of the conversations. If this is in fact his concern about going to the budget table and appointing conferees, then we want to take that concern off the table.
Q: But no meetings are planned or scheduled? We want to make sure we aren't missing; you know everything's played out before our eyes, but what's happening behind the scenes? Just making sure there's no other meeting scheduled.
Leader Pelosi. No, not to my knowledge. But I hope that there's some meeting happening with someone whether the White House or the Senate, but none that we are – we thought that when the Speaker said that he was not going to default on the debt the was going to have a bipartisan agreement to do that, that gave us hope that there might be some time that we would discuss that. Mr. Hoyer?
Whip Hoyer. I just want to say there are a lot because as we've all said we've agreed to what they passed. Nobody believed that the Affordable Care Act was going to be repealed, or that we were going to stop the individual mandate. Nobody in the majority of their party didn't believe that. They thought it was optics for their base. So at this point in time were saying yes to their offer, normally-I served on the appropriations committee along with Leader Pelosi and others…
Leader Pelosi. Mr. Clyburn
[Laughter]
Whip Hoyer. And Mr. Clyburn. I served for 23 years on the Appropriations Committee. Normally when you're about to end the government funding authorization you get to the end of the year and normally the numbers are different and so you have to sit down and say which numbers are we going to use? Now, if you've passed appropriation bills you say when we will use the lower of either the house or senate passed bill. Now, however, we've said yes we'll take your number!
Now, we're not going to take your number forever, well go and talk about it. We will go to the Budget Committee and well talk about it. That's how the process works, that's how regular order works. That's how the American people run their lives. When they have differences whether in the family or with somebody else, they sit down and talk and try to get them.
So I want to tell you: have I talked to Republicans on a regular relative basis? Absolutely. I talk to them every day about what they think is happening. And I will tell you without mentioning names, an overwhelming number of the people I talk to, conservative Republicans, think: "Hey we ought to get this done and get the government open and then talk about other areas that we want to try to get agreement."
Assistant Leader Clyburn. Let me add to that because I've talked to quite a few Republicans about this and I agree with what the Whip has said. What we are saying is: "We will accept your number – we've already accepted your number – for the next six weeks while we sit down and talk about where to go from there." Because every Republican I've talked to tells me they want to get rid of the sequester, every one of them!
The problem is the number we've accepted digs in the sequester. So, if we accept this for the next six weeks, this is what we're talking about, then we will have the discussion on how to go forward, how to get rid of the sequester. Because those Members from my state, I'm sure they're reading the same headlines I'm reading. It's around the river plant, which is not in my district, just furloughed 1,400 people. That is not what a representative of that plant ought to be. And it's not in my district but I'm sure a lot of those 1,400 do live in my district and go to that plant.
Leader Pelosi. And you fought for that plant.
Assistant Leader Clyburn. I fought very hard for that plant.
[Laughter]
In fact to the chagrin of a few people here standing behind me, I fought very hard to get the level of funding that they've got there and this is the payback that I'm getting from some of my colleagues.
Chairman Xavier Becerra. I constantly hear my Republican colleagues say that the President and Democrats are not willing to negotiate or compromise. Well, I think my colleagues here have described not only have we been willing to negotiate and compromise but we've accepted the Republican number on the budget – which we find offensive – but because we don't believe it's right to close down the government, to exercise your own social and political agenda. We've decided to negotiate and compromise to that number. But my point is this: I hope that one of these times when one of our Republican colleagues gets up and says: "Democrats, the President they're not negotiating, they're not compromising," you will ask them, "Did their Republican leadership go across the aisle? Not across the city to 1600 Pennsylvania but just across the hallway to meet with their Democratic counterparts, all 200 of us, to ask us to negotiate or to request some compromise on each and every one of the bills that they have been putting on the floor since they shut down government? Have they at all ever reached out to Democrats that are in the same body with them to negotiate the bills that they have put on the floor?
And I think you're going to get a very clear answer. They have never sat down with us to craft these bills that they keep putting on the floor that they say are to take care of their own government shutdown. And so, I hope you will pose the question to them if they're so adamant about having the President or Democrats negotiate or compromise with them, have they taken the time to walk across the hall to the office of their Democratic colleague, all 200 of us, to ask us if we are willing to negotiate or compromise on the bills that they themselves are putting on the floor of House of Representatives?
Q: Madame Leader, what do you make of the idea of calling the House in on a Saturday morning to vote on a bill that quite honestly could have been voted on yesterday and then sending everybody home to come back on Monday night?
Leader Pelosi. Well, what I make of it is that at a time when we have a Republican Government Shutdown is that we should be here working through so that I think it's possible for us to open government on Monday. If you're a tax payer in this country and you say: "I don't like this government shutdown because we're not getting our services." But now we're going to pay the public employees for not delivering our services. Our public employees are patriot, they're public servants, and they want to work. And I think that to say we're going to pay people but they don't have to work to get paid, it just doesn't make any sense. It doesn't make any sense.
I just want to say this because I think this will be our last question [and] I'll yield to my colleagues. When you ask about negotiating these conversations and they make a big to do about the President saying one thing or another. Three things: the full faith and credit of the United States of America? Not negotiable. The idea that they were going to defund, overturn, or delay the ACA? That's not going to happen. As I said to my colleagues yesterday that's like saying: "Give me your first born child and then we'll talk about the rest of the family." That's just not going to happen. And then the third point is to bring back the bill, their bill, which was again approved by the President, approved by the Senate, approved by the House Democrats but not by them.
And the point of having these names on this letter is to say to those Republicans, whom standing and Mr. Clyburn and I and Mr. Becerra and Mr. Crowley – who had to go, he has another responsibility right now – and Mr. Van Hollen, all the conversations we've been having the word is that they're saying: "We we're willing to vote for this if it's going to pass." And were saying to them: "If there are two dozen of you, or just fewer than that who are willing to vote for it. It is going to pass."
So, we're not asking them to take any risk. We're showing that this 98 plus percent of House Democrats have signed the letter. More of the few who are left, more will vote for the bill that don't sign letters. So, we just need a dozen and a half or two dozen Republicans to open government, to go to the table to negotiate. The President is willing to negotiate on all that. Mr. Van Hollen talked about infrastructure, investing in jobs, the opportunity cost of what is happening here in terms of the entrepreneurship and the greatness of America is stunning.
We're having these conversations which should be just swept aside and move on to how can we work together in nonpartisan way addressing the challenges we face again in a very, very positive way where we know that we can find common ground. But there are elements in the Republican Party who are determined that it will be the party of "no; no we won't accept your offer of giving us our number, no we are not going to open up government even if you agree with us on how we go forward, no we're not going to say yes to it." Well, we'll see what happens today and I'm hoping for a positive response.
With that I yield to my colleagues whatever closing statements they may have.
Whip Hoyer. Let me respond to your question. What I make of it, I think it is recognition of the disgust that the American people feel for the failure to take an action which would have taken five minutes on September 30th to do everything and much more than we have done in the last five days. It is the appearance of action without the substance of action. It is a recognition that we ought to be working to get this done.
The problem is, it's so simple to get done that we are having these "filler bills" to pretend that we are doing things that when the reality is in five minutes, as Mr. Van Hollen has so frequently said and all of us have said, in five minutes we could open the government up, put people back to work, go to conference on the budget, discuss our differences, and be a responsible effective board of directors for the greatest nation on the face of the Earth. I think that's what I make of it.
Mr. Van Hollen. Today's actions, as we've said, have just absolutely highlighted the madness and folly of the Republican leadership position because what they have said is that: "We are going to pay all the federal employees," as we should, "but were going to pay them to stay at home." Because we have been saying let's send everybody back to work as they want to go and they're essentially are saying: "let's pay them but we're going to prevent them from going back to work." They're going to stand at the doors of federal agencies prevent people from doing their jobs while they say they want to pay people ultimately to do their jobs. As we've all said federal employees want to get back to serving the public that's what they love to do. So, it's an absolutely absurd position.
Now, I just want to emphasize one thing which the Leader has mentioned and others have mentioned. We have tried to negotiate on the budget from the very beginning they have blocked us from those negotiations from the very beginning. They block those negotiations for one simple reason, when you have a negotiation between the House Republican budget and the Democratic budget and the President's budget, you actually have to reach a compromise. There's got to be give and take, you got to meet somewhere in the middle. We don't like the provisions in their budget that squeeze seniors on Medicare who have a median income of $23,000. We don't like the part of the Republican budget that provides another windfall tax break to very wealthy people, like the Romney-Ryan ticket wanted to do. We don't like the parts of their budget that decimate important investments in investments.
We have our own budget alternative, we want to make those important investments in our future. We want to replace the sequester that is a drag on the economy. We want to address the long term deficit problem through a combination of smart, targeted cuts but also an elimination of tax breaks for very wealthy people – a balanced approach to reducing the deficit.
So, we have our budget approach and the President does and they have theirs. And the idea of a budget negotiation is you meet in the middle, they don't want to compromise. So what are they saying? They're saying: "No, what we Republicans are going to give as our policy concession is we're going to vote to make sure the United States pays our bills on time. We're going to do what every Member on Congress has the responsibility of doing because every Member of Congress has voted on those, right?" And were saying: "No. You cannot hold the full faith and credit of the United States hostage to try and enact your radical policy agenda."
We all have to vote to make sure we pay our bills on time and let's get together at the table and negotiate those important priorities separately. And you're going to be hearing this conversation a lot going forward because they want to set this conversation as if they're making a huge concession by agreeing to pay our bills on time and in exchange for that we've got to adopt their budget agenda. That's the way they're trying to set this negotiation up.
So, we are going to meet in the middle in exchange for the Republicans doing the responsible thing and paying the bills on time. "You got to give us our budget agenda, that's the middle." That's not the middle! That's political extortion! The middle is between our budget proposals, the Presidents priorities, and their budget proposal which we think is very harmful to the country.
Whip Hoyer. I started to say what Chris had to say, a half solvent nation is not a compromise.
Leader Pelosi. I want to thank Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Van Hollen for their leadership on behalf of our federal employees it's part of their life work here and Mr. Cummings on the floor today I think honored their services to many of other of our Members from the Democratic and Republican side. So, it is with all the respect in the world that we want to open government so they can come back to work as they want to do. They are public servants, we want to honor them by making sure they can pay their mortgages but we want them also to give the tax payers the services they deserve as well.
So, thank you all very much.