Providing for Consideration of Conference Report on H.R. 2055, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2012; Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3672, Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, 2012; Providing for Consideration of H. Con. Res. 94
Floor Speech
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Mr. McGOVERN. This is not the way you promised to run the House. This is not how you said you would do the people's business. You said you would bring up every appropriations bill under an open rule, but you barely manage to bring up half of them. Half of the appropriations bills were never brought up before Members of this House.
What happened to the Labor-HHS bill? What happened to the Transportation bill? The Financial Services bill? The Interior bill? The State and Foreign Ops bill? The CJS bill? That's not the Senate's fault; that's not Barack Obama's fault. You're in control of this House of Representatives; you have the power to bring bills up to the floor. You couldn't be bothered to bring them up.
Sure, you found time to bring up bills to defund Planned Parenthood and National Public Radio. You had time to bring up bills that would allow unsafe people to carry concealed weapons from one State to another. Oh, and my favorite, you found time to reaffirm our national motto. That's what all the American people are worried about, whether we're going to reaffirm our national motto.
But you couldn't find time to debate bills funding our Nation's roads, bridges, national parks, and community health centers. You couldn't find to time to do your job.
Now, I'm glad the appropriators reached an agreement, but it's sad that this Republican Congress has once again broken the promise they made to the American people. A 2,300-page bill--something this important and detailed--can't be read and examined in a few hours. That's why you promised 3 days to read the bill, but you couldn't even keep that promise. I remember when they were in charge at an earlier time when immunity for prescription drug companies was inserted into an appropriations bill without anyone knowing about it.
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