Jim Nussle: “I have even been told today I was shooting at Santa Claus. Somebody came to the floor and said I shot Santa Claus today.…”

“I have even been told today I was shooting at Santa Claus. Somebody came to the floor and said I shot Santa Claus today. My goodness, I have been accused of a lot of things, but shooting Santa Claus and personally, individually, one Member stopping 24,000 families from getting that housing, let us review the record. If this was so important, would my colleagues not think that the Committee on Appropriations, in their base bill as it was reported to the subcommittee, do my colleagues not think that in that base bill they would have written this procedure in? It was not done. It was not done. In fact, it was done as an amendment at the committee. So I understand that this is now a pretty important priority for a number of reasons. Some of it is politics. Some of it is expediency. Some of it is probably due to the fact that we have a body across the Rotunda that does not appear to be getting much accomplished. There is a lot of that that probably makes it very difficult. But that does not mean that we bend our rules, we break our rules here in the House in order to proceed. There is not one family today that loses their housing as a result of a point of order on the House floor. My goodness, if that was the case, there would probably be a lot more Members down here doing a lot of points of order on a lot more issues. What needs to be done is, priorities need to be made.”