mr. speaker , i yield myself such time as i may consume . 
perhaps i misspoke earlier saying that this would be the least controversial item we would deal with this morning . 
i recognize that we all had to get up early to be at rules this morning , and apparently it is affecting some of our temperaments . 
i would just point out that we finished all of the house 's work , and i gave equal credit to both our chairman , the gentleman from california ( mr. lewis ) xz4002392 and the rest of his committee and the ranking member , the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. obey ) xz4003000 , who finished all of our work by july 4 , all of our appropriations processes in regular order , in an individual manner instead of having to bundle them up into a train at the end of the legislative season . 
to date , we have finished seven of those 11 appropriations bills . 
we will do the eighth in a couple of hours here on this floor today , which leaves three remaining waiting to be returned from their conference work with the senate . 
so it is often said at times in the house that your opposition is the other party , but your enemy is the other chamber . 
and when it comes to the enemy of time and being at the end of the legislative calendar , that , unfortunately , is the case with the appropriations process that we are waiting on regular order , the conference committees with the house and the senate to finish their work on those three remaining bills . 
with respect to the gentleman 's concerns about a closed rule , this is a continuing resolution that is one sentence long . 
it funds the operations of government from now until december 17 . 
the stifling of debate is nonexistent . 
there are no speakers on either side for this . 
the fact that it is a closed rule indicates that there is really no other option about how to approach a continuing resolution other than should it be december 16 instead of december 17 ? 
would the gentleman have the cr expire on thanksgiving day when no one will be in this chamber to act to fund the operations of the government so that national parks remain open and social security checks continue to go out ? 
what would the amendments be that the gentleman would offer if december 17 is an inadequate solution to funding the operations of government until we finish the three remaining conference reports on appropriations ? 
to say that that is stifling democracy is nothing more than hyperbole . 
mr. speaker , i reserve the balance of my time . 
