Louise Slaughter: “well, here we are doing another martial law rule and we wait and wait for the conference committee to finish its work…”

“well, here we are doing another martial law rule and we wait and wait for the conference committee to finish its work, the conference committee that, I might add, did not include a single Democrat, which is unusual. Let me say that again. This conference committee we are waiting for did not include a single Democrat. Whenever we do a rule to waive two-thirds consideration, it means we will be rushing the underlying bill to the floor, giving the Members virtually no time at all to actually read the bill or determine what it is we are voting on. This time, we are waiting for the fiscal year 2006 budget conference, a bill that will spend more than 2 trillion taxpayer dollars. Why are we rushing something that is so important and impacts virtually every American? Why do we not just follow the regular order of business set forth in the House rules and let the conference finish its work and file its report and give Members a minimum of 3 days, required by House rules, so they can read and understand the blueprint for spending the taxes? Is that too much to ask? After all, we only have a 2\1/2\-day workweek in the House, and certainly most Americans would not consider that a heavy workload, not compared to the ones they have anyway. The situation we are faced with today is one that is all too familiar in the House. Yesterday, after 4 months of stonewalling, the majority finally acquiesced and reinstated the proper ethical standards for the House.…”