Martin Hoke: “we have done a lot, we have gone a long way to reform this Congress. But one of the things that we have not done is, we…”

“we have done a lot, we have gone a long way to reform this Congress. But one of the things that we have not done is, we have not really tackled a systemic problem that needs systemic and systematic reform. One of the problems we have got in the Congress is that we really have three parties. We have got Republicans; we have Democrats; and then we have appropriators. And sometimes the appropriators forget which party they originally came from. The reason that it creates such a problem is that the appropriators run this place in a different way, knowing that if we do in fact get to the floor and make a cut, that when we make that cut, it will not matter. They can reprogram it however they want anyhow afterward, because it will not actually cut the budget in a way that goes to the deficit but it will simply be available to be used in another program in that particular appropriations bill. That is wrong. It is part of what gives a certain kind of arrogance to the appropriations process that, frankly, becomes problematic to the rest of the Members.”