Hal Rogers: “Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. It really is a substitute amendment, and it's an…”

“Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to this amendment. It really is a substitute amendment, and it's an across-the-board cut. This body has spent many late nights all this week debating a yearlong CR which makes targeted spending decisions and weighs the pros and cons of each and every program in the Federal Government, and I think the House has done itself proud this week in that work. Adoption of this substitute proposal, however, would wipe out everything we've done this whole week. Every amendment adopted would be gone. Every calculated decision would be forgotten. Rather, the amendment would replace our hard-fought spending decisions by taking the easy way out, by making no real decisions at all, by punting the ball to OMB and the bureaucrats instead of making the decisions our electorate elected us to make. The across-the-board nature of the amendment's cuts provides no opportunity for discretion. It punishes or rewards without regard to merit. For example, under this amendment, the FBI's operations would be cut by $1.5 billion. A reduction of that magnitude would result in the layoff of thousands of agents, undermining our ability to prevent terrorist attacks and to investigate the most serious Federal crimes.”