On the recordSeptember 28, 2015
I wish to talk about an amendment I plan to offer in a little while, once somebody comes from our side or the other side because they would like to be here to talk about it with me, as I understand it--maybe even to object to it, maybe to agree with it. But I wish to speak about the amendment, if I could, for a moment. Right now, we are debating the continuing resolution. This would be to continue a level of spending from now until December 11. There are a bunch of changes in that from last year's spending, but it is basically a continuation of the previous year until we can work out our differences. It is not the way to govern around here. What we should be doing instead is having individual spending bills come up. There are 12 different appropriations bills. The ideal way to handle this is the way it used to be done, which is that the Appropriations Committee and its subcommittees deal with these individual spending bills. For instance, one is for Commerce, the State Department, and the Justice Department. One is for the Department of Health and Human Services, and one is for the Department of Defense. When we do that, what happens is we have oversight hearings, and we have Congress playing its rightful role of saying: Are these agencies doing the right thing? Are these programs working or aren't they working?…
