Gilbert Gutknecht: “I feel a little bit like the famous cartoon character Horton, who hatched the egg. Just to remind Members what this is…”

“I feel a little bit like the famous cartoon character Horton, who hatched the egg. Just to remind Members what this is all about, back when we passed the budget resolution the joint conference committee report with the Senate, this Congress did something which many of us felt was inappropriate and something that needed to be corrected. We literally agreed to increase spending by $4.1 billion more than we had agreed we would spend last year. Unfortunately, that budget resolution, the conference committee came back after we passed a couple of the budget bills previous to this. Now, I certainly do not want to cast any aspersions on the subcommittee chairman and the work of the Committee on Appropriations, but I think in terms of keeping faith with our promises last year and keeping faith with the American people and most importantly keeping faith with the American children, I think it is important that we do everything within our power to try to recover that fumble. What we did was we increased spending by $4.1 billion.”