Providing for Consideration of H.R. Save the Internet Act of Providing for Consideration of H.R. Investing for the People Act of and for Other Purposes

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, a member of the Budget Committee, for yielding, and my colleague on the Rules Committee.

I rise to oppose the rule and oppose the underlying legislation. Now, I oppose the rule because it is not really a rule at all. It is really legislation masking as a rule.

Buried in this rule is a measure that will, what we call self- execute, but deem what the budget is going to be. In other words, our friends are telling us: We may not have the votes, even though we have a substantial majority, to pass our own caps bill. But just in case, the rule vote, which is a partisan vote, we are going to put it in here.

Now, that doesn't speak to a high degree of confidence that my friends will have the votes, which they should have, on their caps deal. I would argue it is technically legal, but it is not a very seemly practice to actually express your distrust of your own majority that directly.

Second, let's talk a little bit about the underlying legislation. There is a lot here I don't agree with, but I want to focus on one thing in particular, Mr. Speaker, and that is the ``budget'' itself, because it is not a budget. It is a caps bill.

It is not even a caps deal. It hasn't been negotiated with the Senate. It hasn't been negotiated with the administration. It is an arbitrary number. It has no chance of becoming law. There is no way a Republican Senate will have double the amount of increase for domestic programs as it has for defense. It is just not going to happen.

So, now, the Appropriations Committee--and I am always happy to have numbers as an appropriator--will now move on down with a set of numbers that we know will not survive negotiations with the Senate or with the President. So we are going to mark up a lot of bills, but they are going to be the numbers that are a fantasy.

Finally, in this caps deal, we ought to point out, our own rules require the majority to present a budget. We couldn't even get a budget out of the Democratic Budget Committee. Now, that is a failure to govern.

The Speaker, herself, said on one occasion: Show me your budget, and I will show you your values.

It suggests that you don't want to show the American people your values, because you certainly aren't showing us a budget in this legislation.

So the rule, frankly, is a backdoor way to enact some sort of caps legislation, caps legislation that will not be accepted by the Senate, that will not be accepted by the President of the United States.

The underlying legislation doesn't have a budget, which our own rules require that it have. It has a mere statement of spending levels that, again, are not going to be accepted by the other Chamber or by the President of the United States.

And, finally, our friends have abdicated their most important responsibility, which is showing the American people their view and their vision of what the budget ought to shape.

The rule ought to be rejected; the underlying legislation ought to be rejected; and our friends ought to challenge themselves to bring us a budget that they can support, that they can put in front of the American people.

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