Jim Nussle: “I want to start by giving my appreciation to my good friend from Florida for his good work on the Committee on Rules…”

“I want to start by giving my appreciation to my good friend from Florida for his good work on the Committee on Rules, and for the Committee on Rules as a whole, for their patience, for their understanding, for the thoroughness in which they have conducted this budget process, reform process. That is really what we are talking about today, is process. As much as there are a few Members in our body that are rushing to the floor now at the last minute wanting to inject into this a certain level of political substance, let me caution Members that this has been a bipartisan process which has not gone to the level of political substance or political theater. I would suggest that while there are many viewpoints on exactly how the budget process should be conducted, exactly how our budget should be arrived at, we have, in this process with the Committee on Rules, with the Committee on the Budget, with the Committee on Appropriations, stayed completely away from substantive outcome determinant procedures. This is outcome neutral in its process.”