Steny Hoyer: “to make a serious point, I have commended every time I have stood on this floor the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young)…”

“to make a serious point, I have commended every time I have stood on this floor the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, for his leadership. The gentleman, I think, on our side of the aisle is perceived to be one of the fairest, kindest, most responsible Members of this House. I share that view in great measure; and I think the serious point here is, as we will hopefully pass this CR, is that we really ought to get away from first innings, second innings, and third innings; and we ought to start, and that is my real point, Mr. Speaker, sitting down together, as we are now. The gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe) and I sat down on the Treasury-Postal bill. I think we have agreement on where we ought to be. I think we need to start that process earlier and be real earlier and stop making political points as to who is saving money or who is not saving money when we know the inevitable result will be we will attempt to fund appropriation bills at levels that are consistent with what we think our responsibilities are.”