Hoyer Discusses Sequestration, House Republicans' Continuing Resolution on Federal News Radio
WASHINGTON, DC - Congressman Steny H. Hoyer (MD-5) discussed the need to replace sequestration with a balanced approach to bring down the deficit and his opposition to House Republicans’ Continuing Resolution on Federal News Radio’s “In Depth with Francis Rose” yesterday. Below are excerpts and a link to the interview.
Click here to listen to the interview.
“Our federal employee constituents are concerned that we are operating government in such a crisis mode without any degree of confidence for our employees, for our managers, for the American people. It is not a way to run any enterprise, much less this great country, and it is having a very negative impact on the economy and on the country.”
“I agree that both Republicans and Democrats say that they don’t want to shut down government, but nor do we want to adversely affect the government’s ability to defend this country and to invest in growing the economy. We do, however, agree that we need to reduce spending, bring our debt down, and bring our deficit down. So we have offered alternatives. Unfortunately, Chris Van Hollen who has offered those alternatives on our behalf has been rejected now four times in a row to even consider on the Floor, to even allow Members of the House to vote on an alternative to what we call the sequester, that is the cutting across the board the highest priorities and the lowest priorities exactly the same percentage, which we think is irrational.”
“…In a democracy you don’t get to make it your way all the time or maybe most of the time. What you do get is hopefully the ability to compromise and come to an agreement. When a [Continuing Resolution] bill comes back from the Senate… My inclination will be to vote for it, but at this juncture we have [Republicans’ Continuing Resolution] option that is not a good option and that is not rational, that will not be good for our federal employees, for the federal government, and for our country and I intend to oppose it.”