Whether planning for vacation, business, or other travel, millions of Americans depend on the hotel and lodging industry to provide valuable services while they are away from home.
Hotels can offer everything from a comfortable room and a place to eat to advice on where to visit and how to get to the next stop. Travelers have been able to rely on this level of service while this industry steadily grows, creates jobs, and opens doors for employees to move ahead.
In an economy that often generates negative headlines, what we see in the hotel and lodging industry is usually the exact opposite. It is a positive story that Congress should stand behind with policies that will help it grow and thrive. Measures that invigorate the economy, provide marketplace certainty, cut red tape and onerous regulations, and keep taxes and expenses low come to mind and have my full support.
On Capitol Hill, Congress has been making strides in establishing the federal budget while putting some of these lodging-impacting initiatives in place. Case in point: The 12 appropriations bills recently passed by the House Appropriations Committee, along with six appropriations bills passed by the full House of Representatives. This accomplishment is the result of 101 budget and oversight hearings from more than 400 witnesses in House hearings, as well as 472 considered amendments during 70 hours of debate regarding appropriations bills on the House Floor.
Unfortunately, this momentum has since halted. And, as a result, action on issues important to the hotel and lodging industry has also stalled. As of the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, the deadline to fund the federal government, the Senate had not passed a single appropriations bill. What’s worse, Congress once again failed to return to “regular order,” or the steady process of enacting appropriations bills and accompanying policy, and instead created even more uncertainty about next year’s fiscal budget. It also means that hundreds of hours of carefully crafted and meaningful policy changes within the appropriations bills could be shelved until further notice.
American businesses and families do not operate on last year’s budget and neither should the federal government. Straying from purposeful, steady, on-time budgeting to temporary, stop-gap funding measures is wasteful and unproductive. Put another way, operating on last year’s budget doesn’t put you ahead, it puts you behind. And casting aside months and months of policy work means current-day needs aren’t being addressed.
In regards to the hotel and lodging industry, we’re talking about prevailing issues including ambush elections in which unions are attempting to speed up the unionization process, the campaign by organized labor to rewrite the joint employee standard to enable them to expand the scope of organizing efforts, and an ever-increasing number of online deceptive hotel booking sites. Harmful to industry and consumers alike, I strongly support the elimination of ambush elections, oppose union efforts to re-write the joint employee standard, and recently called for immediate action to protect consumers from deceptive hotel booking sites. However, any effort to move in that direction within the appropriations process will be brought to a standstill through a long-term continuing resolution.
This fall, Congress once again regrettably finds itself in budget turmoil. It’s imperative that Congress return to regular order without delay, which allows the appropriations process to move forward and establishes a long-term budget that can provide the certainty businesses, like the hotel industry, need in order to grow and thrive.
The appropriations process can and must be used to enact positive, pro-growth policies that strengthen our economy, create jobs, and offer the promise of a bright future for generations to come. For the sake of the hotel and lodging industry and all sectors of the economy, every Member of Congress must stand up and say “yes” to the process of regular order in appropriations and “no more” to divisive and partisan bickering that only leaves this nation behind. Congress has an opportunity to make progress, but only if we keep the schedule running on time.
U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw represents the Fourth Congressional District of Florida, where he serves as Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government.
