Ernest Istook: “I rise in opposition to this rule. As so many others, my concern is what is not included in this particular piece of…”

“I rise in opposition to this rule. As so many others, my concern is what is not included in this particular piece of legislation and what, under this rule, we cannot include. As a member of the subcommittee that funds the White House and the Executive Office of the President, I have been trying to do a very, very simple thing: Find out how much they pay the people who work at the White House. They refuse to tell us. Those of us who are on the committee in charge of the budget for the White House, they will not tell us how much they pay their employees. Even though they say they have diminished the number of people who work there, they have increased the amount that it costs the taxpayers. Why? Because we are told it is a higher caliber of person who deserves a higher amount of pay. And yet they will not tell us how much it is. If this rule is defeated, we will have the opportunity to include the very simple amendment that I have been sponsoring, to require the White House to tell us.”