Joel Hefley: “I rise again to offer an amendment to cut the level of funding in this appropriations bill by 1 percent. This equals…”

“I rise again to offer an amendment to cut the level of funding in this appropriations bill by 1 percent. This equals about $5.6 million. This is not the biggest bill that we deal with. However, the increase in the bill is over 3 percent over last year. I do not mean this at all as a slap against D.C., our Nation's Capital, certainly not a slap against the committee, because as most Members are aware, I have offered a series of these amendments on the appropriations bills because I think we have to start drawing the line somewhere and some time. The budget we have for next year is too large, and we can do something about the deficit now if we would start doing it. I would really be remiss, however, Mr. Chairman, if I did not commend the chairman and ranking member on a very difficult job that they have had to do; and, obviously, they have done a very excellent job of it as evidenced by the fact that we are not spending half a day on the D.C. bill down here, that they have worked out the problems beforehand. So I commend them on a tremendous job that both of them and the committee have done.”