The Public Record
Let me correct the gentleman in one respect. There was no change of heart on the part of the majority leadership on anything to my knowledge. Secondly, if we are talking about trust, the fact is that I have been asked in this agreement to…
With all due respect, I take no responsibility for anything done by any authorizing committee.
That's our understanding. As a practical matter, last year, if you take all of the appropriation bills, the House expended approximately 108 hours of debate. We think that somehow within time reasonably close to that and with reasonable…
Let me say, and then be very blunt about this, this agreement requires a lot of trust between people. I've had to rely on a lot of trust on the minority leader tonight, and I expect to have the right to expect the same consideration from…
No one is trying to hold back information. What I need is time to know what that information is. With respect to the certifications you are talking about, they will be available in the committee office to the public, to Members of…
I am now trying, and so is our leadership, to reduce earmarks by at least 50 percent. As you know, there are a lot of people who are angry about the fact that we are cutting earmarks by that much.
Even though the Senate is resisting, I am the person who ended the earmarks. I am the person who put a moratorium on earmarks for a year. You know that two-thirds of your caucus and two-thirds of my caucus were mad as hell at me when I did…
With all due respect, the letters requesting earmarks are not going to be made public. Let me explain what will be made public. I will take responsibility for every earmark that I recommend. But I have no intention of taking responsibility…
It is our intention with respect to open rules to make virtually the same request of the Rules Committee with respect to each bill that was made by your party when you were in the majority. And it is our hope that you will respond as we…
No one is trying to make anything difficult for any Member to review anything. I don't know what experience you had under the last regime. We have not had an opportunity to perform on that yet.
There are no earmarks in this bill. I personally have no interest in adding them. If it happens in the process because of the will of the committee or the body, then they will be in the bill when it comes back to the House and then the…
That's not correct. There is an understanding that has been reached. It is a little more complicated than the gentleman has expressed. But the intent is that all of the bills will, by the time the bills move to the Senate, have an…
Mr. Chairman, I had not intended to speak, and I certainly am not directing my comments to the gentleman who just spoke, but I do want to make a few comments about the issue of so-called earmarks. For the last 2 days, Member after Member…
I don't have any idea what earmarks our Republican friends would want to see included in, for instance, the Labor-Health-Education bill. But the fact is, there is one other protection that we want to have in our process: Unlike the past…
the comments of the previous speaker simply indicate how little she understands about the appropriations process. The fact is that the Iraqi bill we had to deal with was last year's supplemental request. Last year's, not this year's, so we…
It is not our fault that we had to spend at least 60 days answering questions from the San Diego prosecutor about shenanigans that occurred on your side of the aisle in the last year. That occupied the staff for an incredible amount of…
I want to say that I think this bill being brought forth today is an excellent bill. It will strengthen America's security, and every Member interested in doing that ought to vote for it. The four security-related appropriation bills which…
It is not our fault that the San Diego attorney subpoenaed records from our committee relating to shenanigans that were conducted on the other side of the aisle in the previous Congress under Republican control.
I agree we need accountability. And I want to simply say I don't regard your failure to pass any of your amendments as a personal failure on your part. Mr. Chairman, I think the gentleman has done his dead level best. The problem is that…
I am opposed to both the underlying amendment and the substitute amendment, and let me tell you why. I think it's important to put that amendment in context. We had crocodile tears expressed here about the number of earmarks and what will…
I would like, if I could, in a calm atmosphere to simply walk Members of the House through some of the facts so that they understand exactly what it takes for the staff to prepare earmarks for consideration by the Congress. Yesterday, we…
Let me simply note that it was the administration that refused to provide support for including funds for the pandemic flu challenge facing the country. We have tried on this side of the aisle for more than a month to include that funding…
let me simply say, in response to the comments from the gentleman, that given what he prefers to see in this bill on this subject, we are very lucky to have the 1-year fix at all because the White House opposed not only the long-term fix…
I am sorry to interfere with the gentlelady's time, but I just wanted to bring something to the attention of the gentleman from California. He mentioned that the time stamp on the proposition he received was 6:31 p.m. last night. That was…
As I was saying, Mr. Speaker, we don't relish bringing a package to the floor that we don't like and that we are not going to vote for. But what I especially don't relish is the fact that, in the process of doing so, we are criticized by…
Politicians like David Obey
