Don Nickles: “I make a budget point of order because we didn't have any funding. The $15 billion in outlays we are getting ready to…”

“I make a budget point of order because we didn't have any funding. The $15 billion in outlays we are getting ready to pass was not in the budget. Granted, this bill has a lot of support. It had a lot of support when we passed the budget, but it was not included. It was not included in the House budget. It was not included in the Senate budget. We had a budget. The budget we agreed upon said we were going to have so much in spending. This was not part of it. So we have to waive the budget if we are going to pass it, or a budget point of order lies, or else we are just breaking the budget. The reason I raise this point is that Congress in the last several months has been, in my opinion, pretty irresponsible. We have had spending grow dramatically, and yet many people are saying it is not enough. Some people are saying, because of the disaster on September 11, we need a lot more money for this and for that. Some of us need to kind of total it up. I don't think we have totaled it up. Spending is growing dramatically.”