On the recordJune 4, 2013
I thank my friend for yielding. I want to quote what one of my Democratic colleagues quoted last night in the Rules Committee, and that's Federalist Paper No. 58, written by James Madison for the Independent Journal back on February 20, 1788. And he said this: This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure. Because that's the constitutional responsibility of this body, Mr. Speaker, to appropriate these dollars. This process of appropriations, this constitutional responsibility, cannot begin until we have some numbers against which to budget and appropriate. What my chairman on the Budget Committee has asked is that as an interim step, and an interim step only, we adopt these numbers today on bills about which we all agree. What is cynical, Mr. Speaker, is that these are things on which we all agree, and we're using this as a position to talk about other issues about which we disagree.
