Jeff Flake: “I should note, with this legislation, in the middle of the night last night we did the equivalent of earmarking on an…”

“I should note, with this legislation, in the middle of the night last night we did the equivalent of earmarking on an authorization bill. We, in the middle of the night, designated some 25 hospitals, giving them a different designation, which will save those hospitals millions and millions of dollars. That's the equivalent of appropriation earmarks in an authorization bill, done without debate, without notice. We're getting it now. And there is a process within the executive branch to deal with this. We have circumvented that process and said we're going to do it legislatively. That is simply not right and certainly not in keeping with the spirit of legislation that was passed just yesterday.”