Chris Van Hollen: “I thank my friend, Mr. Hastings. I've been listening to Mr. Webster. And if I were Mr. Webster, I'd be doing exactly…”

“I thank my friend, Mr. Hastings. I've been listening to Mr. Webster. And if I were Mr. Webster, I'd be doing exactly what he's doing, which is focusing on the underlying bills: the spending bill to support our veterans, to support military construction, and homeland security. {time} 1340 But as others have pointed out, the vote before us is not on those underlying bills. It's on the rule. And everybody needs to understand that what's at play here is a scheme to use the rules to affect not just the veterans budget, but to affect other parts of our budget. In fact, Mr. Speaker, I find it especially cynical that our colleagues would use the spending bills on veterans and military construction as the vehicle to pass their budget levels which will result in dramatic cuts to the parts of the budget that fund our kids' education and that fund the investments in science and research to find cures and treatments to things like cancer, because we know the Appropriations Committee has already set out what the levels for those categories to the budget will be. And do you know what they are? A $30 billion cut below the sequester level to the parts of the budget that fund our kids' education and that fund that scientific research. So, yes, this is the rule for two particular bills. They are good bills. The veterans bill is a good bill. But the rule, ladies and gentlemen, has embedded in it the Republican budget levels for the overall budget process.…”