Steny Hoyer: “I appreciate the gentleman making the comment with respect to the Defense Department and the importance of funding them…”

“I appreciate the gentleman making the comment with respect to the Defense Department and the importance of funding them, and I agree with that. I want to point out that the same challenge applies to all the other agencies of government. The more quickly they can be funded, the more they know what their funding is for the next 9 months--that is, between December 20 and September 30--and the more able they are to plan and rationally run their agencies. So I appreciate his observation about the Defense Department. It applies to all of government. We are hopeful that we can fund, and our intention is to fund, all of government with full-year or at least the balance of the year appropriation bills.”