Commerce, Justice, Science, Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, Interior, Environment, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Act, 2020

Floor Speech

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Mr. WOMACK. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Granger) for yielding and for her leadership.

I, too, am concerned about the direction we are heading in this continuing resolution, but I have another reason, Mr. Speaker. This CR includes a provision that has a significant budgetary impact. I am frustrated that the amendment I filed with the Rules Committee last night was not made in order to address it.

My amendment would have offset $76 billion in mandatory spending increases from repealing a rescission of funds in the 2015 Fixing America's Surface Transportation Act, or FAST Act, a transportation bill.

This provision, Mr. Speaker, would have a significant impact on mandatory spending, which everybody in this Chamber knows is driving the Nation's deficits and debt.

Let me be clear: The amendment would have allowed for the highway funding to take place but simply called for it to be paid for.

Now, I don't think that is asking too much, to ask for increases in spending, given the fact that we will have a trillion-dollar deficit this year on top of the $23 trillion debt, to just simply pay for the excesses.

The House should have had an opportunity to consider whether to offset the funding in a fiscally responsible manner, in my opinion. I find it troubling that we were not given that opportunity. That is one thing.

The manner in which the CR was assembled doesn't provide a great deal of hope that we will enact a full-year defense spending bill, which the military so desperately needs right now. I share the concerns of the distinguished majority leader.

Mr. Speaker, I am not optimistic that we will conclude all of these other funding bills before the expiration of the next CR. The difference is going to be that it is going to be the 20th of December. It is going to be right before Christmas, and we will do whatever we can to get out of town to go celebrate the holidays.

The majority leader says if that happens, he will be mad. My recommendation to him is to prepare to be mad. I know how this place works.

Mr. Speaker, is it not apparent to the discerning people of America and specifically to the people in this Chamber that this is a flawed and broken process and that we need to fix it?

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Mr. WOMACK. Mr. Speaker, we need to fix it.

I spent last year with the distinguished chair of the Appropriations Committee, Mrs. Lowey, as co-chairs of the Joint Select Committee on Budget and Appropriations Process Reform. We got really close on some good ideas that would fundamentally change the way we do our Article I responsibility, but we left all that at the altar.

What more evidence do we need to show that this process is flawed, that it is broken and needs to be fixed?

I am frustrated. The American people are frustrated.

Nobody paying attention to this process conducts their business or their personal finances the way this body does, the legislative body of the most incredible country ever known to humankind.

Yet the question today is: Will we just kick the can down the road to right before Christmas in hopes that this Congress is going to have some epiphany that we have to do the work that we have been trying to do for the last 7 weeks? We are 7 weeks into the fiscal year.

Mr. Speaker, I had breakfast this morning with the Secretary of the Army, and here is what he said: Eventually, we will give you the money, our men and women in uniform. The problem is that we can't give you the time back.

That time is running through the clock, so I am frustrated.

I am prepared to vote ``no,'' and I am prepared to continue to work as long as it takes to make sure that we do our work on time and not kick the can down the road.

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