Ranking Member DeLauro Statement on the Revised Subcommittee Allocations
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro’s (D-CT-03) remarks on the revised subcommittee allocations:
-As Prepared For Delivery-
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, you know I have deep respect for you and a deep appreciation of our friendship. I know that this has not been the process you would have preferred.
But frankly, it is absurd and an affront to good governance that the majority released ten of 12 funding bills before informing the Appropriations Committee, the Congress, and the American people, what the allocations are across each bill.
That is not how appropriations should be done, or can be done. When I led the Appropriations committee, not once did the full committee mark up a bill without the full slate of subcommittee allocations in hand.
We cannot make sound decisions on investments without having the full picture from the start.
Only now, after marking up ten bills in subcommittee and seven in the full committee, can we see the devastating, destructive, and draconian funding levels the majority plans to impose on programs and services that help the middle class, the working class, and vulnerable Americans make ends meet.
I am deeply fearful that, at a time when appropriators must come together to defend our power of the purse, the path the majority has chosen will only survive to degrade the efficacy and credibility of what we are doing in this room.
Let us work together and get the appropriations process back on track. Let us demonstrate that we can produce the best outcomes for the American people by joining together in this room and producing bipartisan bills that help the American people – the middle class, the working class, vulnerable Americans, seniors, rural Americans, and small businesses.
Some in Congress and in the White House want to end appropriations as we know it, and believe we cannot do the job we are set out to do. Let us prove them wrong. Thank you and I yield back.
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