Steny Hoyer: “I think the last speaker's comments did not add to this debate. They were representative of some of the unfortunate kind…”

“I think the last speaker's comments did not add to this debate. They were representative of some of the unfortunate kind of rhetoric that has put this Congress in a position where it is at this last minute, at this last gasp, trying to redeem itself. It is hard to do that because we have done so little up to this point. I will vote for this bill, like the ranking member of the committee will vote for this bill. I, like others, have worked hard on much of this bill. But those speakers who have carried this bill, this 40-pound bill, to the floor and indicated that this was not the process that should be followed are absolutely correct. The Committee on Appropriations was made late in its work because the budget resolution did not pass. It did not pass, not because there were any Democrats that opposed it or the President could have vetoed it, because he could not. He does not involve himself in the budget process. It did not pass because the chairman of the Committee on the Budget in the Senate who is a Republican said that the House Resolution is dead on arrival. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations said the House Resolution is dead on arrival. We could not work under this resolution. So the majority party in the House and the majority party in the Senate could not agree, so we deferred and deferred and deferred.…”