Steve Scalise: “I thank the gentleman for that information as we look toward this appropriations process coming to the floor next week.…”

“I thank the gentleman for that information as we look toward this appropriations process coming to the floor next week. I would hope it doesn't take the same tone that it took in committee, and that is a hyper-partisan approach, which in years past, we have seen Republicans and Democrats come together to ultimately determine how best to fund this United States Government. And any bill that is going to get sent to the President's desk is going to ultimately be a bipartisan bill. Unfortunately, that is not the bill that is going to be coming to the floor. There are a lot of very extreme radical elements that were put in that bill, but there was also something very alarming, and that was a break, a departure, from over 40 years of bipartisan agreement on what is known as the Hyde amendment. Henry Hyde, in the 1970s, was able to get agreement between Republicans and Democrats to say on all the things we may disagree with, let's at least agree that taxpayer funding should not be used for abortions. And overwhelming majorities of Republicans and Democrats have supported that going back to 1976. This appropriations bill guts the Hyde amendment. And why this Democrat majority decided to break from decades of bipartisan agreement on Hyde is perplexing.…”