On the recordMay 8, 2012
I thank my colleague from Florida for joining me here for this debate today. And there really are some things that we disagree about here in this body at large. But one thing we don't disagree about is the importance of bringing open rules to this floor to debate appropriations bills. This appropriations bill that we're bringing under this rule, Mr. Speaker, is a 1 percent reduction from the levels the President has proposed. As we hear folks talk about the doom and the gloom and the kicking of children and the punishing of women--1 percent. There's a long, hard fall to the bottom coming all right, and it's coming in the American economy. And I'll tell you who gets hurt the most in a bad economy: it's the poorest and the weakest among us. We all know it. We're asking for 1 percent less than what the President proposed in the name of taking a small step in the right direction. You could have gotten me for 20 or 25 percent less, just to be clear. You could've gotten me on board if we'd gone 20 or 25 percent less. But this body is trying to move in a responsible fashion. There's only one budget that's passed in this town, Mr. Speaker. The President's budget didn't pass. It got zero votes last year in the Senate. It got zero votes this year in the House. It didn't even get introduced last year in the House. There's only one budget in this town that has passed. That's the one that came out of the open process that we had right here.…
