Tom Cole Defends Government Funding Talks

Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole, senior member of the Appropriations and Rules committees of the House of Representatives, defends ongoing negotiations among appropriators formulating an omnibus spending bill for the remaining five months of fiscal 2017. Cole says the bill will do some big things like granting supplemental money for defense and military upgrades, very substantial increases for the National Institutes of Health, observing that since the 1974 Budget Act, budgets and appropriations to be completed on time exactly 4 times, calling it a defective process initially set in motion by Democrats. Cole says that the Appropriations Committee had completed its work, but does not schedule legislation, that incoming trump administration had wanted to wait on spending bills to have input though the regular appropriations should have been done in late 2016 although people were not in place, they were not ready, and the cabinet had not yet been appointed, concluding that Congress should in the future remember to do that and first things first.