Willie Hefner: “Unfortunately, we have got an excellent defense bill. Our chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), and the…”

“Unfortunately, we have got an excellent defense bill. Our chairman, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murtha), has done a tremendous job. But the chairman of the Committee on Rules made a statement a while ago that we are playing politics with the Nation's defense, but this goes back beyond this bill. This goes back to when we were considering the budget. We had a rule that came in here on a budget, that there were two budgets that were offered, and they eliminated one of the budgets that could be offered because they were afraid it was going to pass. Then we beat our chest and said we have balanced the budget. We have sent out press releases. We have finally accomplished a balanced budget. Now here we are. We set caps. We put caps on this budget, and we are trying to find ways to break the caps. The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Neumann) over here who is a strong supporter of the Kasich budget, they are trying to break the agreement that they made on the balanced budget and the Kasich budget. If this is a problem that has to be fixed, it has to be fixed. It is something that is going to come. We do not know the exact day, but it is coming. My colleagues talk about playing politics with it. This is an unfortunate situation. I plan to vote for the budget because I believe that this is a good bill.”