John Spratt: “Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote for this bill because I think basically we should segregate the part A trust fund. But I…”

“Mr. Speaker, I am going to vote for this bill because I think basically we should segregate the part A trust fund. But I am going to plead the abuse of process before acceding to the bill, because this is not the way to make important law. As I said earlier, this bill was not drafted, to the best of my knowledge, until last night. We did not see it this morning until 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock. It was not introduced or referred to the Committee on the Budget. It did not come through the Committee on Rules. The Committee on the Budget has jurisdiction, but we have held no hearings on it. We have taken no testimony. Now the debate is limited to 40 minutes, and there are no amendments in order. That is too bad. The House ought to be able to come out here and work its will on a piece of legislation this important. If we were allowed to, we could have corrected some of the flaws in the bill. I think if we put it to the House as a whole, do we want Medicare taken cleanly off budget, it would be an overwhelming yes. We still do not know why that compromise was made. Secondly, there are glitches in this bill that honest, open debate, an amendment, could, number one, ferret out and, number two, correct.”