Steny Hoyer: “I rise for a number of reasons. First of all, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], my…”

“I rise for a number of reasons. First of all, I want to congratulate the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], my chairman, who, as he has said, has been working very hard to try to either resolve the supplemental as a whole or to take a portion of the supplemental and move that forward for immediate relief and to indicate that this Congress was going to act. I congratulate the chairman for his efforts and the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Obey], our ranking member, for his. Mr. Leader, if I might, in the spirit of positive debate and constructive debate, I want to make an observation. It relates to the complaints that were made about 'Christmas treeing' supplementals when the Democrats were in charge.”