Mike Conaway: “I will attempt to be mercifully brief. My amendment would simply do this: Our rules and the way we function here would…”

“I will attempt to be mercifully brief. My amendment would simply do this: Our rules and the way we function here would prevent all of the hard work that goes on in attempting to reduce spending. All of the efforts on behalf of many of my colleagues to actually trim things out of this spending plan really, they labored in vain. Because the mechanics of the system are that should we prevail in any of these votes later on tonight or tomorrow to actually reduce spending, then that money stays within the 302(b) category and is reallocated at some other point in the future and does not really reduce spending. I understand this is a futile effort and the point of order will be sustained, so I don't intend to push it further than this, simply to use this time to bring my colleagues' attention to a failure in our system to in effect protect us from ourselves. I have a standalone bill that would mechanically allow that any reductions in the spending that occur as a result of the hard work here in this Chamber on this bill that would go against the deficit to reduce the deficit, or should we ever get back into a surplus circumstance, would actually increase that surplus.”