Louise Slaughter: “early this morning the Committee on Rules passed a lopsided rule packed with Republican amendments. It is shocking that…”

“early this morning the Committee on Rules passed a lopsided rule packed with Republican amendments. It is shocking that of the 19 amendments made in order, only one Democrat amendment and one bipartisan amendment are in order. Senior Democrats were shut out, while the rule makes the amendments of junior Members in order on the Republican side. The rule provides for one-sided debate on H.R. 4663. The House will be allowed to discuss and vote on Republican amendments, but Democratic ideas and amendments have been virtually excluded in the important debate on budget process reform. Mr. Speaker, the question before us is whether or not the current budget process creates a product that embodies our budget policies and our priorities. The Federal Government has gone from having historic surpluses of $5.26 trillion to having historic deficits of $2.3 trillion. If we are unsatisfied with a budget, are policies or the budget process to blame? Should the budget process enforcement mechanism be policy neutral or should the process force or enable Congress to make policy decisions? Earlier this spring, the Subcommittee on Legislative and Budget Process of the Committee on Rules held a series of hearings on these questions. The message that came out of the hearings seemed to be, I thought, that the budget process is not at fault. Its structural flaws in the budget process did not produce Federal budgets with massive debt. Instead, the budgets are products of policy choices.…”