Jeff Flake: “I find it ironic that we are being accused on this side of trying to stifle debate on the bill, that we don't want…”

“I find it ironic that we are being accused on this side of trying to stifle debate on the bill, that we don't want debate on the bill when I am here to argue against a rule that waives these points of order and a rule that also does not allow opposition to claim time. Now, the majority will say, well, we will yield you time now. Now that we have been caught on this, we will yield you some time. That's not the same as controlling time. When I control time, I can yield time to my colleagues. If I am yielded time, I can't do that. I don't control time in opposition. Our House Rules say that if both the majority and the minority are in favor of the bill for the leadership, that somebody opposed to the bill has a right to claim time in opposition. That was not done here. With a bill this important, you wonder why that has happened. Back to the earmarks, the gentleman mentioned that there is a list of earmarks that was listed, it's right here, a number of them. Now why in the world we had to have more than a dozen earmarks airdropped into a bill that has been under consideration for the past 2 years, I simply don't know. But when you read some of them, you kind of wonder why, like I said, Housing Assistance Council, Sun Grant Insular Pacific Sub-Center, Desert Terminal Lakes, Nevada. This is all we know about them. If you dig into them, you might find something untoward, you might not, but the fact is we don't have time to do that.”