Joseph T. Burns: “This bill has such a delicate balance that there could be--and I will raise it--a budgetary point of order. That is what…”

“This bill has such a delicate balance that there could be--and I will raise it--a budgetary point of order. That is what we have to work with. The Senator from Oklahoma knows how to work with budgets and how we work with appropriations. It proposes to add $121 million to the Indian Health Service for a special diabetes program and an alcohol substance abuse program. The offset would be derived from an equivalent reduction in land acquisition. This transfer of funds results in a change of outlays that causes the bill to exceed its outlay allocation. Now we might work on offsets in some other areas. As to the argument that you would make about land acquisition, we have always had land acquisition, but we have also had land sales. I wish I could stand here and report to you that we had as many sales as we have had acquisitions because I, for one, support the idea that there should be no net gain of land by the Federal Government. I come from county government. I know whenever the Government buys land, it takes it off the tax rolls. It hurts me as a county commissioner to provide all the programs that I have been asked to provide at the county level. In fact, we passed some legislation at one time when I first came here, which I was part of, of no net gain--or no net loss--whichever way you want to define it. The way this is structured does raise a point of order, and I will raise that point.…”