On the recordJune 8, 2012
I want to urge my colleagues to vote against this amendment. One of the reasons we have committee structure is so that the members of the subcommittee that I chair--and Mr. Honda is the ranking member. As I said earlier, we sit down. We listen to the AGG heads and the Architect of the Capitol, which is in charge of the budget for the Botanic Garden. They make difficult choices. They come to us, and we make difficult choices. As I've said, we have reduced spending in the Legislative Branch Subcommittee for 3 years in a row. We are now at a point where it is almost 9 percent less than it was 3 years ago. So if you just decide you want to stand up and cut another 10 percent of this budget and then say you really like the Botanic Garden, it seems to me that this is a function of the Architect of the Capitol. It costs $12 million a year to have the Botanic Garden. A million people a year come to visit it and enjoy the beauty. If you're just going to stand up and say, Let's just cut 10 percent across the board, let's just start with the Botanic Garden, I don't know why you don't just cut 10 percent from the Capitol Police and 10 percent from some other areas. It just seems to be shortsighted. We've gone through this process already. The Architect of the Capitol has said, I'm not going to ask for additional money to do some of the repairs I need to do. There's a need for a new roof and there's a need for some other things.…
