Charles W. Stenholm: “Why can we not just for once be honest with the American people? Every single Member of this body is in favor of…”

“Why can we not just for once be honest with the American people? Every single Member of this body is in favor of supporting our troops in Afghanistan. And any rhetoric notwithstanding is not being honest. Everyone that makes statements like my friend from Texas made a moment ago knows better than that. The war on terrorism is too serious to play political games with. To call this rule an open rule is laughable. The answer to the question of my colleague from Mississippi, Mr. Speaker, is no, he will be held out of order when he offers an amendment to pay for this war and not charge it to our grandchildren. I cannot imagine how anybody that purports to be a conservative would support this resolution and this rule if they look at the scoring that is being applied, and then saying to their colleagues it is being paid for, when my colleagues know better. Back in 1994, I joined with 321 of my colleagues, including 166 Republicans that are still here, that said we ought to put a stop to emergency spending bills having nonemergency issues being added to them.”