Tom Cole: “I could not have a better working partner than my good friend from Connecticut. I am very proud that this bill is, as my…”

“I could not have a better working partner than my good friend from Connecticut. I am very proud that this bill is, as my friend said, bipartisan. This has been in negotiation at every level, and the ranking member and I have worked hard to push the decisionmaking down to the subcommittee levels as much as we possibly can. I know we have both told our respective chairmen and ranking members: 'Hey, if you don't send us anything up, you are making us happy. We want you to make the decisions.' The members of the subcommittees know the subject matter better than anybody else. They have done the hearings. They have done the work. They work well. The higher up the food chain it goes, frankly, the more political the decisions become and the less informed. Let the people who have actually done the work write the bills. In this case, in these three and the three preceding bills, that is exactly what happened, and I couldn't be more pleased with that result.”