Porter Goss: “this is an appropriate structured rule for consideration of the Comprehensive Budget Reform Act of 1999. As one of the…”

“this is an appropriate structured rule for consideration of the Comprehensive Budget Reform Act of 1999. As one of the authors of the underlying bill, I can tell my colleagues that great pains were taken to accommodate the concerns of our House committees and Members in this legislation. In fashioning this rule, we have taken similar care to ensure, as best as possible, a nonpartisan substantive debate about our budget process. Leaving aside our budget policy differences, and I emphasize policy, we do hope to come to a consensus on an improved, outcome-neutral budget process. The rule provides for 90 minutes of general debate, divided fairly between the three committees of jurisdiction, the Committee on Budget, the Committee on Rules, and Committee on Appropriations. The rule makes in order seven amendments from both sides of the aisle. Three of those amendments are attempts to put a section back into the bill that were dropped at the request of committees. One aims to strike altogether the linchpin of the bill, the Joint Budget Resolution. So I think that the Committee on Rules has clearly erred on the side of the inclusion of the amendment process, if we have erred at all on this. Mr. Speaker, when I came to Congress, I suspect I was like most Americans out there watching the debate on budget process. I knew little about how the budget process worked in Washington, and what I did know did not make a whole lot of sense.”