Willie Hefner: “this is a troubling time for me. We were before the Committee on Rules on Military Construction, and I think it is a…”

“this is a troubling time for me. We were before the Committee on Rules on Military Construction, and I think it is a very good bill that we put together with limited funds. But there is an old saying that goes, ``Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.'' If I might just remind Members the process that went on just a week ago. We had on this floor a budget. We had the Kasich budget; we had the Republican substitute, which did not pass; we had a so-called Blue Dog budget that tracked very closely to what the budget was in the other body that had the votes to pass, but it was not made in order by the Committee on Rules. Members who have been here for quite some time know that the Committee on Rules is the Speaker's committee. The Speaker decides, and he can call the shots on what comes out of the Committee on Rules. They did not see fit to put in place a budget that could have passed here and would have gone a long way to implement the balanced budget that we have. We do not want to put that in order because it will pass. Then we talk about campaign reform for all these years. We come and they offer a rule on campaign financing, and they put all of these amendments in order, many of them nongermane, and then they have an amendment that says if something is declared unconstitutional, the whole bill goes down the tubes, a procedure that would absolutely do away with any campaign reform.”