John Culberson: “I want to focus in this 2 minutes on the merits of the gentleman from Florida's (Chairman Young) proposal which he is…”

“I want to focus in this 2 minutes on the merits of the gentleman from Florida's (Chairman Young) proposal which he is withdrawing tonight so that he can work with the members of the Committee on the Budget, Members of this House, and listen to all of the best advice that he can gather to come up with some substantive and meaningful reform of our appropriations process and the budget process. We all recognize the Committee on Appropriations only controls about 20 percent of Federal spending. The gentleman from Florida's (Chairman Young) proposal, which really merits our support, has laid out a system to shut down or sequester mandatory spending in the event the Office of Management and Budget baseline estimates are exceeded because Congress has passed more mandatory spending programs. And that is where the bulk of the problem lies, because Congress continues to pass programs that require us to spend more money. The gentleman from Florida's (Chairman Young) bill would also establish baseline estimates that do not include emergency spending. Obviously, in time of war emergency, we need to move bills through. We are going to spend money that we did not contemplate. The chairman's bill would also set out a change of start date of the fiscal year to November 1. But the part that I am particularly pleased about and excited to see, the chairman has proposed sunsetting of all Federal programs, except earned entitlements, effective October 1 of 2006 unless reauthorized.”