Joel Hefley: “Mr. Chairman, I will admit that I offer this amendment with a great deal of ambivalence because the gentleman from North…”

“Mr. Chairman, I will admit that I offer this amendment with a great deal of ambivalence because the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) takes a back seat to no one when it comes to trying to get control of the spending of our Federal budget. I have appreciated that over the years and have worked with him over the years on this effort. This amendment does offer an across-the-board cut of 1 percent or about $194 million. Actually I think this is generally a good bill. It addresses concerns that I have concern about, many things that are very important to me, many areas that I have been concerned about for years, including wildfire prevention and suppression. It has managed to do this at a level of about $186 million less than last year. I appreciate that. That took a lot of effort. It is still $110 million over the President's request, however. I offered a similar amendment on the Labor-HHS bill a week ago and intend to do this on most of the appropriations bills, so it is no reflection on your bill. It is just that I want some way to express the concern. Last week when we were talking about this, we were talking about a $400 billion deficit. Today they have changed those projections and now we are talking about a $450 billion deficit and say next year it will be $475 billion. When I arrived in Congress in 1987, we were running a $200 billion deficit and everyone thought that was the worst problem facing us.”