Steny Hoyer: “I wish I could vote for this bill. I voted for many of the bills that are in here, as the chairman knows. But, Mr.…”

“I wish I could vote for this bill. I voted for many of the bills that are in here, as the chairman knows. But, Mr. Speaker, we have a very bad process that is going on here. We act in the House, the Senate acts the same way, and it goes to conference and magically it disappears, or it comes back here 180 degrees different. This is a corruption of the democratic process. It has ignored the will of the House and the Senate on outsourcing, Cuba travel, drug reimportation, school vouchers in the District of Columbia. Funding in the omnibus for the No Child Left Behind is too low; funding for NIH represents a real reduction. The congressional branch does not work, Mr. Speaker, for the executive. I would urge the majority party, my friends on the other side, to let the executive department know that this is a democracy. It is not a kingdom; it is not a dictatorship. And just because the House passes something, the Senate passes something, and they do not like it, that does not mean the Congress of the United States ought to turn tail and run.”