On the recordApril 29, 2015
I enjoy serving on the Budget Committee with my friend from Kentucky. The budget is that first step of any accounting process for the year, and my friend is absolutely right. If we could have, we would have passed that budget conference report first thing when we got into town this week. Anybody who is reading the newspaper knows it slowed down in the Senate. We have all the numbers worked out. There are some other issues going on. I won't bore folks with those details. So this rule absolutely does, in the name of getting the people's business done, take those budget levels that have passed in this House, that have passed in the Senate, that are on their way back over here in a conference report, and sets those as the funding levels for this year. Again, these are the levels that exist in law. That is the fantasy part of some of our funding debates. I could agree with all my colleagues that we need to triple funding on X, Y, or Z project, but the law won't allow it. We will pass that on the floor of the House, but as soon as the beginning of the fiscal year rolls around, the law will sequester those dollars, snap that funding back down. We have an obligation to prioritize these dollars ourselves. Golly, when we have tough decisions to be made, I don't want to leave those tough decisions to an automatic sequestration process. I don't want to leave those tough decisions to some automatic process of law.…
