David Minge: “Mr. Chairman, this proposal that we are considering this afternoon gives us in the House of Representatives an…”

“Mr. Chairman, this proposal that we are considering this afternoon gives us in the House of Representatives an opportunity to move ahead with a very ticklish task of developing a budget and trying to improve the rigors of the budget process in several different respects. It is always easy to criticize progress and to say, oh, there is a parade of horribles here. If we try something new and different, we may have problems. Well, I submit that is really not the issue. The issue is do we have problems with the way we are currently handling our budget responsibilities. And indeed we do. The problems are legion. One of them is that we do not find out until September or October of each year whether or not we have agreement with the White House. So one of the challenges is how can we move this dispute up to an earlier point in the year. This particular proposal does that. The same thing for emergencies. The same thing for accrual accounting and a variety of other things that would represent improvements in the budget process. I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of this proposal.”