David Price: “I thank our ranking member for yielding, and I thank her and our chairman for their good work. I must still rise…”

“I thank our ranking member for yielding, and I thank her and our chairman for their good work. I must still rise, however, in opposition to the fiscal 2018 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies bill, and the Republican Omnibus bill. I want to stress, Mr. Chairman, that I am heartened, as I imagine every Member of this body is heartened, by the bipartisan cooperation we have been able to muster to reach out to our neighbors in Texas and Louisiana who have been so devastated. It is the same kind of solidarity and cooperation that I know we will muster, whatever the need is after Irma reaches our shores. We anticipate that storm with a great deal of concern and apprehension. We have a history in this body of pulling together when it matters for our neighbors whenever disasters strike. That kind of cooperation is absolutely essential to who we are as a country and who we are as an institution. Mr. Chair, I want to urge that we bring that same spirit of cooperation, that same understanding of the historic cooperation that has characterized appropriations, to our larger appropriations challenge. After all, this is the power of the purse. This is our main constitutional power, and history shows it works best when it is exercised cooperatively, no matter who the President is or what the party division is. We need to work in a cooperative fashion to make sure that this power is just as effectively and responsibly exercised as possible.…”