Transcript of Pelosi, House Democrats Press Conference Today on Republicans' One Year Anniversary Leading House without Jobs Agenda
Contact: Nadeam Elshami/Drew Hammill, 202-226-7616
Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats held a press conference today in the Capitol Visitor Center to highlight the GOP’s one year anniversary of leading the House of Representatives without a jobs agenda—an occasion Republicans are celebrating by keeping the House out of session while Americans are out of work. Below is a transcript of the press conference:
Leader Pelosi. Good morning, everyone. As you know, one year ago the Republican majority was sworn into office. Since that time we have seen no major job agenda put forward. We have seen a budget that wants to break the Medicare guarantee. This is just in opposition to everything this country needs. We have important work to do. As the President said, we can't wait. We have work to do. The American people want jobs and we are not on the job. This Congress is out of session for two more weeks and only a few days in session in the month of January.
We have important work to do with our conference on cutting payroll taxes to the middle class, with extending unemployment benefits for those who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and for ensuring that our seniors can see the doctor of their choice under Medicare.
Our conferees are here and present and ready to work. Our Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Levin, Xavier Becerra, Congressman Chris Van Hollen, Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz and Henry Waxman of California, they are here, ready to work. We wish the conference would get to work and not take us to a point of brinksmanship, pushing it to the last minute again, narrowing the choices, adding to the uncertainty for the American people. We have important work to do to do just that, extend those benefits and that tax cut, because they create jobs. They inject demand into the economy, create jobs.
That is what the American people need and want. They want jobs. They want us to work together. They want to know why we are not on the job now when they are so in need of jobs.
In addition to that, we are here to talk about reigniting the American dream, to build ladders of opportunity for all who want to work hard, play by the rules and to take responsibility. In reigniting the American dream, we want to rebuild the great middle class of our country. We think that is best done by rebuilding the infrastructure of America. Again, we can't wait. We have important work to do.
One year in office, no significant jobs bill. I know they are saying, well, we passed one piece of the President's jobs bill, the veterans piece. Of course they did. Of course they did. The President offered the American Jobs Act, very popular among the public. They passed one piece of it. We are still fighting for the full extension of the payroll tax cut, and much of the rest of it just going by the by.
Where are they? I don't know. Where should they be? Right here in this Capitol getting to work on this conference committee, addressing the concerns of the American people to create jobs, to strengthen the middle class.
With that I am pleased to yield to our distinguished Assistant Leader, Mr. Clyburn.
Assistant Leader James E. Clyburn. Thank you very much, Madam Leader.
As the Leader indicated, today marks one year since the tea party Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives. They came into power and laid out for the American people their vision of how we should move forward. The centerpiece of that vision was the Ryan budget. That budget, as we studied it, did some significant things. Above all things, it created additional options for the wealthy and eliminated opportunities for the middle class.
We saw in that budget an attempt to do away with the Medicare guarantee and replace it with a plan that would cost seniors over $6,000 annually in additional costs; we saw in their plan an attempt, that budget, an attempt to make college education less obtainable for low and middle income Americans; we saw in that budget an assault on seniors to make nursing home care much more expensive and in many instances impossible to obtain.
We are now celebrating a new calendar year. It is now time for our Republican friends to join us and initiate for the American people a new beginning.
Recent studies have indicated, and we have seen all these studies, there is a tremendous growing wealth gap in our country. The wealthy are getting wealthier and the middle income are seeing their opportunities shrink. That is why if you look at this budget you will see all kinds of additional options for the wealthy or the one or two percent and the elimination of opportunities for middle and lower income Americans.
Our hope is that our Republican friends will hurry back to Washington and help us create opportunities, help us reignite the American dream, help us get the American people back to work.
With that, I would like to yield to the Chair of the House Democratic Caucus, John Larson.
Chairman John Larson. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Echoing Jim's sentiments, this caucus has reiterated a mantra throughout, which is that job creation equals deficit reduction, and we are here today with our sleeves rolled up prepared to work, as our members have during this break and will continue to do so, because we know that our task is to rebuild the middle class. We know that we have to reignite the American dream. And we know how to do that. We know how to do that by investing in our infrastructure and by making things here in America again.
In my district just yesterday I met with the Greater Hartford Buildings Trades Council. We were at a school building, and at that school building we see what America faces, the need to compete in a global economy by having the best educated students and workforce in the world and also the need to put people back to work. One school, built in 1922, in desperate need of repair, and more than 40 percent of the building trades unemployed in Greater Hartford for the last 2 years. There is a great opportunity here. All we have to do is seize on the President's plan and put this country back to work.
Some have said that our colleagues are just pure obstructionists; that they want to see this economy continue at a slow pace so that it will impact the race for the President of the United States. It is a new year. We are going to give our colleagues the benefit of the doubt. That is why we are here with our sleeves rolled up and prepared to work.
It has been suggested to me, and confirmed by The New York Times just last week in the science section, that what may in fact be impacting our colleagues on the other side of the aisle is that they have prosopagnosia. Now that, for you out there in the audience, means this: It is a blindness that they have. It is a blindness that also works in a way that you don't recognize people's voices. How else can you not hear the plea of 14 million Americans that are out of work who need to be put back to work?
We are here prepared to work, ready to go, to reignite the American dream, make things in America, and continue to have the greatest country on the face of the Earth, led by a great leader, Rosa DeLauro.
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. Thank you very much, Chairman Larson.
Happy New Year to all. Thank you for being here. I want to say how pleased I am to join with our Leader and my colleagues who are all assembled here.
What we are about here today, as my colleagues have pointed out, is we are trying to look at and direct our discussions and our work on creating jobs and creating a growing economy in this nation. And while that House majority is continuing their extended vacation, we have millions of middle class and working families, they have been waiting. They have been waiting for this institution to respond meaningfully to a jobs crisis. It is time that the majority walked in the shoes of the families who are suffering because of this economic crisis.
All of last year, this institution was, quite frankly, dysfunctional. For partisan political reasons, the House Republican majority refused to consider any legislation that would create jobs and get America moving again. In 2012, our nation can no longer afford this type of inaction, so we are here to get back to work, hit the ground running on an agenda of job creation and economic growth.
The thing is, we know what we have to do to create jobs and get this economy on an upward path that enriches all of us. We have to make smart investments in infrastructure, small businesses, workers, education, innovative research and families that will restore the foundations of prosperity and help us to compete in the global economy. We need to think outside of the box. We have to pass job creating legislation like an infrastructure bank that I have fought for for two decades. This is a nation today that only consumes, we do not build anything, and we need to get back to rebuilding and look at jobs that cannot be outsourced overseas.
We have to provide incentives for corporations to create good American jobs, particularly in manufacturing at home, rather than shipping those jobs overseas. And we need to pursue a balanced approach to deficit reduction that asks all Americans, including the wealthiest one percent, to contribute their full share.
All of these initiatives are a precondition for a growing economy; all have been proposed by the President and by the Democrats; and many of them have, until recently long enjoyed bipartisan support.
It is time to get to work, to get them passed. In 2012, the American people need Congress to work for them again, and we need to reignite the American dream by fostering innovation and opportunity and ensuring that all Americans have access to jobs. We need to ensure that this institution is responding to the needs of ordinary Americans, not just the wealthy special interests.
We have a lot of work to do. We are prepared to do it. And I am confident that we Democrats are going to hit the ground running and move America forward.
Thank you very much, Madam Leader.
Leader Pelosi. Thank you very much, Chairwoman DeLauro, Congresswoman DeLauro, Chairwoman DeLauro and Chairman George Miller, co-chairs of our Steering and Policy Committee. Under their auspices, Members came back, many more than are here now, who have been working on our reigniting the American dream, whether the rungs of the ladder the firm foundation we put those ladders on, building ladders of success, keeping them there for others to climb up, even after some of them may have succeeded. We can't wait. We can't wait because the American people can't wait.
Before I take any questions from you, and my colleagues are available to do so, especially our conferees, I want to say that this morning we had very extensive and productive meetings in the Gabe Zimmerman Room downstairs, and called and had a conversation with Mark Kelly, the husband of Gabby Giffords, as you know, to extend the good wishes of our Caucus to Gabby, to hear her plans for the weekend as we observe the one year anniversary of the tragedy. We look forward to welcoming her back, and hopefully that will be soon. But we didn't want the one year anniversary to go by without our own conversations internally and without acknowledging publicly the inspiration that Gabby Giffords is to our nation and how her idealism is an inspiration to all of us.
With that, I would like to take some questions you may have first for our conferees, because they are getting to work and they need to leave soonest.
Any questions?
Q: I have a question for the conferees. Are you guys going to bring up the surtax on millionaires as part of these negotiations?
Congressman Chris Van Hollen. Well, as you see, we are all here ready to get to work, and the clock is ticking on the payroll tax cut which benefits 160 million Americans and is very important to the economy. In terms of how we pay for things and to what extent the costs need to be covered, that is going to be a discussion that we all have. We have the Ranking Member of the Ways and Means Committee and others obviously who are here as part of the conference. But from our perspective, we think that we should look at all of those possibilities.
I do want to emphasis this point, because it goes directly to your question. We have a majority of the Republican House Members on this committee who are on record having opposed a payroll tax cut for 160 million Americans. At the same time, they are all on record with their Republican colleagues trying to make sure that we keep open special interest tax loopholes and protect tax breaks for the very wealthiest in this country.
We take a different perspective. We think the way to grow the economy is to empower the middle class and middle income Americans, and part of that is to make sure 160 million Americans have an average $1,500 in their pockets to go out and purchase goods and services so that small businesses can sell those goods and services and we can get the economy moving again.
Q: There was a sharp tick down in the unemployment rate in November. There was a bullish private sector estimate on job creation for December that was put out this morning. How much leeway is there to come off the 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, especially if there is an improving job picture here in the coming weeks?
Congressman Sandy Levin. First let me emphasize the Democratic House conferees have been meeting. We are ready to work. The Senate Democratic conferees have met earlier this week and are ready to work. No conference meeting has been called yet, and we hope one will be called very, very soon.
I want to emphasize that we need to avoid a return to brinksmanship. The Republicans have been dealing with that approach and it has really hurt this country. And we have less than two months, and we are here to say we don't want this to go down to the last hour once again. There are important issues before this conference. We want this to be a real conference, a real conference where we sit down and thrash out all the issues.
Chris Van Hollen has discussed one of them. To the extent that these major programs need to be financed, we want to look at a wide variety of financing them and we do not want health provisions to pay for non-health provisions.
As to unemployment, let me just emphasize, there is a record number of long term unemployed in this country beyond any level on record. Almost half of the unemployed have been unemployed for at least 26 weeks. So while there has been some improvement, for the vast majority who are unemployed, they are looking for work, and the fact remains that for every job there are three to four people who are looking for work.
So we will sit down with the Republicans—we urge that they get here, we can't sit down with empty chairs—and we are willing to talk about these issues. But we should not be sacrificing the needs of unemployed people who are looking for work, and we should not do so in the name of what some Republicans have called reforms, but really would undermine the basic program.
So you will not get specific answers today to each question, because we want to sit down and confer. But I want to say that the House Republican bill that passed when it comes to unemployment was totally unacceptable to Democrats in the House and I think in the Senate, and I think they need to face up to this issue and they need to face up to the other two legs. This is a three legged stool. Plus, I think we need to look at jobs.
Leader Pelosi. Any other question on the conference?
Q: How open do you expect these meetings of the conferees to be? Do you expect them to be happening in public, or behind closed doors?
Congressman Levin. The answer is this should be a conference. This should not be done in secret. We should not be talking about things that are under the table. Look, I know you are not used to a conference, right? I don't know how many of us have been on a conference recently.
Anybody?
Leader Pelosi. The conference on Wall Street reform, we had an open conference.
Congressman Levin. There is one. That is why we are here. That is why we are here. Everybody has to understand this is only postponed until the end of February, and I guess there is one extra day this year in February.
Leader Pelosi. Leap year it is called.
Congressman Levin. I don't think we should let the Republicans leave us to leap year.
Leader Pelosi. And I think you have a role to play in this because this is a matter of great interest to the public, and the fact that this conference, well, by its nature, it should be an open conference. Any other questions
Congressman Levin. And Xavier is here, Allyson is here, Chris has been here, and we talked to Henry Waxman at length.
Leader Pelosi. He is on his way.
Q: If I could just ask a follow up to that, the Supercommittee started with a pledge to have an open process, and we saw over the weeks that became more…
Leader Pelosi. If I just may, this is a completely different scenario. The Supercommittee I had hoped would be more transparent and open, but they wanted to lay some foundations that they could do privately, and you see they did not succeed. I think that the public opportunity to see the negotiations leads to a better product. This is a conference committee of the two Houses of the Congress of the United States. By its nature I believe you have to have a vote to close it. It is of its nature an open conference.
I just want to call upon Allyson, Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz of Pennsylvania, and our vice chair, Xavier Becerra of California, if they want to have anything to add.
Are there any other questions on this subject, or should I just call on them to make whatever comments they want to make on where we go from where, whether it regards substance or openness in process.
Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz. Well, thank you, Madam Leader.
I am very honored to be here and I have been appointed to this conference committee and I do expect it to be a conference committee. I have served on one other one in my first year on a Coast Guard bill, so I have a little bit of experience on this.
But the subject of this conference committee is extremely important to the American people. It became very clear at the end of the year how important it was to 160 million working Americans to have that 2 percent payroll cut as well as to extend unemployment insurance during this continued recovery of the economy. Jobs are what we want to see Americans have access to. Unemployment compensation is what happens when we don't have as many jobs as we need to. So we want to work on both.
The third area, of course, is one that I also care deeply about, and that is making sure that seniors have access to medical care that they need under Medicare. And I appreciate and take seriously the fact that the Republicans agreed to work with us to extend each of these three areas for the rest of the year, and that is actually different from what they said two months before that. You have heard already that some of them are uncertain about this.
So I believe from our side we will take very seriously the conference committee and finding a way forward to make sure that middle class Americans, all 160 million of them, continue to have their payroll cut, that seniors have access to medical care, and that we not only extend unemployment, but that we grow jobs. That is our task, and I look forward to being a part of it.
Congressman Xavier Becerra. Thank you, Madam Leader. I will only add that, and especially to the comment about the Supercommittee, we have a very discrete task in front of us as a conference committee. We are not out to change the entire budget. We are out there to achieve a particular goal, as the Ranking Member Mr. Levin said: Deal with the extension of the payroll tax cut so we can give people money so they can go out there and stimulate the economy so that we can create jobs; we can make sure that people on Medicare can continue to visit their doctors without concern that doctors will say we can no longer afford to be in the program; and making sure that Americans who are out of work through no fault of their own don't find themselves caught up in a system that is willing to bail out banks, big banks, but not American workers.
So those are the three tasks before us. Anyone who wishes to meddle beyond that is risking the clock expiring by February 29th. So most of us believe on the Democratic side that we have a very discrete task in front of us that we can achieve because the American public very much wants us to succeed bipartisanly on this particular issue.
So we hope to do our work, we are ready to work, and we hope our Republican colleagues will join us soon.
Q: Was the Congress in recess yesterday, and are you at all worried that President Obama has set a precedent that may make it easy for a President in the future to circumvent Congress when making appointments?
Leader Pelosi. I am very proud of the President of the United States and the appointments he made yesterday. I am very glad that he did. And it is important for the American people to know what challenges face him as he tries to provide leadership for the agencies of government which have been voted on by the Congress, are part of our public policy.
I especially want to address the Consumer Protection Agency. In the Wall Street reform bill we had the greatest consumer protections in the history of our country. The Republicans want to block the appointment, not because they don't think the person is qualified, but because they don't want that agency to function. So I am proud of what the President did.
Q: The Senate, however, was in a pro forma session yesterday, and critics are saying that the President was not able to make those recess appointments because Congress was not actually in recess.
Leader Pelosi. Well, let that be the public debate with the Senate. Fortunately, or unfortunately for us, we do not have a role in the confirmation process, but we are glad that the President took the lead, went out there, was bold and made the appointments.
Q: Leader Pelosi, one more please. It looks like the Obama reelection campaign may criticize Congress as part of its effort. Would you feel you are being thrown under the bus if they do that?
Leader Pelosi. Well, I think the President has been clear that it is the Republican Congress that has been an obstruction to job creation this year. Just think, for this year, you take me back to the fact that it is one year since they were sworn in as the majority, one year without any major jobs initiative, any jobs agenda; starting the year with the Ryan budget, starting their initiative with the Ryan budget which broke the guarantee for Medicare, which did not create jobs and which did not reduce the deficit.
As I mentioned earlier, one piece of the President's American Jobs Act was passed, a piece that related to veterans. We owe veterans more than that. We owe those, our returning vets coming back and those who have been here, we owe them a future worthy of their sacrifice, and that means a healthier economy where they can come home, succeed, get jobs, have ownership, own businesses. That is where the President's small business initiatives are so important, that is why rebuilding America is so important, keeping jobs here in America that Congresswoman DeLauro said cannot be exported overseas.
So if we just do what we owe our veterans, again, it is an economy that allows them to succeed when they come home. Yes, it is important to have a discrete bill that encourages hiring veterans, but we need a stronger, healthier economy for they and their families, for them and their families to succeed.
So, with that, I join Rosa in wishing you a Happy New Year. Again, we are here. We are going back to work. We will be in session for as long as it takes. But we also would like to have our colleagues come back, have a real session. To your point, they have the appearance of a session so it blocks what the President can do, but not a productive session that gets the job done for the American people. We can't wait. We have work to do. We are going to work right now.
Thank you all very much.
Q: Could I ask about the Department of Defense strategy that the President laid out today? I know a number of the members have large defense portfolios. What is your take on it?
Leader Pelosi. You know what, we will talk to you about that, but we do have to go right now. Thank you very much.
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