John Spratt: “let me explain to the House our problem. This bill has a totally nongermane provision in it, this resolution. For the…”

“let me explain to the House our problem. This bill has a totally nongermane provision in it, this resolution. For the first time in the 15 or 16 years that I have been in the House, and longer for the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), we are using a rule to comply with the Budget Act. We are making budget process procedures here in a rule. Buried in this rule dealing with military construction appropriations is a major budget resolution provision. No notice. Simply stuck in there with the numbers. So that anyone who did not follow the numbers would not really understand the significance of this provision. But here is the significance of it. This is an admission of failure. The Budget Act says that the budget resolution must be completed by Congress, through the House, through the Senate, through conference, a concurrent resolution passed by April 15. We are already more than two months delinquent. More delinquent, later than ever before in the 25 years that we have had a budget process. In order to complete the process, the reason we have this deadline is so that the Committee on Appropriations can begin its allocation process. It has 13 subcommittees. The resolutions that we pass of spending functions has to be allocated to the separate subcommittees. And unless we get this done timely, the Committee on Appropriations cannot get their bills to the floor.…”