House approves rule for two-week spending bill

Late in the debate on the rule, Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) rejected Republican arguments that H.R. 1 should be taken up in the Senate once the two-week spending measure is approved.

“H.R. 1 cannot be looked at as a serious budget document,” he said. “What we have with H.R. 1 is a bill that loads up every piece of the far right social agenda in one bill, from restricting a woman’s right to choose, to preventing government from protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink.

“If we want to have a discussion about a serious budget document and serious cuts, that’s one thing, if we want to have a far-right dream, that’s another,” he said.

Rep. Robert Andrews (D-N.J.) said the cuts in H.R. 1 are “reckless,” and like many others, noted that Moody’s Economy.com estimates that 700,000 jobs would be lost if the bill were to pass.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) likened GOP budget bills to giving people “moldy bread,” a nod to comments from Republicans that failure to pass the whole loaf might lead to making them accept budget bills one slice at a time. Johnson threw in the driving-the-car-into-the-ditch analogy to boot.

“Every slice is speckled with mold of this old-fashioned, old way of thinking that got us into this problem that we’re in now,” Johnson said. “What we have done, is given the keys to the car that they drove into the ditch back to them, and now we are forced to eat bread in that car — moldy bread in that car — that is going nowhere but down.”