HOUSE REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE CHAIRMAN ADAM PUTNAM: "This is a defining moment, an illustrative debate about priorities for this nation...

"As we enter the appropriations process, to actually get down to the nuts and bolts of spending and allocating those dollars to the various programs, we also see explosive growth in the amount of money that they're spending and, again, to borrow from the accounting model that was Enron, more slush funds. More secret slush funds. Stepping away from the important reforms that were passed in the last Congress that shed light on the process whereby Members could direct appropriations.

"But under the process in the last Congress, it was open to public scrutiny, it was transparent to the press and to the public eye, and a point of order could be brought to this House floor if there was not disclosure and if it were air-dropped in the moonlight of a conference. All that's gone. All those reforms have been swept away by the new majority and replaced, by a system whereby one person, one individual, will be the sole arbiter of what is or is not appropriate public spending, relegating the other 434 members of the House of Representatives to a state about as useful as an appendix.

"One individual has deemed himself the sole determinant of where hard-earned federal dollars will be spent, and that will be done at the last possible moment in the earliest possible hour of the wee hours of the morning, without the press, without the public, without the taxpayers' involvement. That is not acceptable.

"Today's debate marks the beginning of an appropriations season where the Republicans will insist on transparency, insist on full disclosure, and insist on maximizing the value for Americans' hard-earned dollars and how they are spent in this federal govenrment. It may be $79,000 at a time - as this amendment is - it may be into the millions or tens of millions or hundreds of millions, but we will not tolerate having a $2.7 trillion budget rammed down our throats without disclosure, without debate [and] without consideration." (House Floor Remarks, 6/12/07)