mr. speaker , i yield myself 10 minutes .  mr. speaker , i will not take very long on this bill either , but i do think it is important to take note of a few facts .  at the beginning of this year , it was made quite clear by the majority that they desired to finish all appropriations bills on time and that there be no omnibus appropriations bill lumping all kinds of disassociated items into the same package .  we on the minority side of the aisle have provided procedural cooperation at virtually every step of the way .  we have provided time limits on debate on virtually every bill that we were asked to provide them .  those time limits were sometimes stringent and they met with objection from a number of members .  we provided unanimous consent so that the scheduling of legislation could be accelerated on numerous occasions .  and despite that fact , today some 6 weeks into the fiscal year , we have four bills which are still not finished .  those bills are the treasury , transportation , hud bill , the military quality of life bill , the labor , health , education and social services bill , and the defense appropriations bill .  together , those four bills , which we have yet to complete , represent 78 percent of appropriated financing for the coming year .  why are we still not finished ?  it is certainly not because of any failure on the part of the appropriations committee .  the appropriations committee kept to its schedule and every bill was passed earlier than almost any year that i can recall .  and yet we are here with so much unfinished business on the appropriations side of the ledger .  the reason i think is very clear .  despite the fact that the white house , the senate and the house are all under control of the majority party , despite that fact we have reached this delay and are forced once again to seek another continuing resolution .  the reason that has occurred , in my view , is because the budget resolution was so skewed in favor of the ideological right within the majority party caucus that in the end , even a number of republican moderates have not wanted to vote for some of these bills , most especially in the senate .  and we find that even republican committee chairmen , like senator specter , have described one of the bills as being totally inadequate to its responsibilities .  this country is in the middle of fighting a war .  that war has a huge cost , and yet the republican majority is in pursuit of its goal of providing huge tax cuts , a huge percentage of which will be put into the pockets of the most wealthy people in this country .  their desire to do that has led them to a willingness to borrow whatever it takes in order to put the money in those pockets and then use the resulting deficit as a reason to cut back on a number of other bills .  they use it as a reason to make significant cuts in education , in health , in science , environmental protection and the rest , and then pretend that the cost of katrina is what made them do it , when , in fact , the cost of tax cuts for persons in the top 1 percent of income in this country over the next decade will cost about 10 times as much as the cost of katrina .  so then we are forced because of the squeeze , we are forced to endure delays , and we have to bring forward a continuing resolution such as we are doing today .  and i would point out that after we have gone through all of this effort , we , in the end , are probably still going to be stuck with an omnibus appropriations bill at the end , despite the fact that the majority party indicated they were going to move heaven and earth in order to avoid such an eventuality .  the game plan apparently is to try to pass three appropriations bills yet this week , and then that will leave us in december with the defense appropriations bill , and evidently the intention at this point is to attach everything but the kitchen sink to that bill so that we will , in effect , have a recreated omnibus .  it is my understanding that the people expect to attach the bird flu appropriations , the appropriations for katrina supplemental , and every other special deal that somebody can conjure up and attach it to the defense bill , and then hide it behind the skirts of military spending .  the betting is that members will want to support funding for the troops and so they will vote for whatever other garbage is attached to that bill by way of nongermane items .  that , i think , would be a dysfunctional result , but that appears to be where we are headed .  it could be avoided if the majority had chosen to be a little less ideological , if they had chosen to pull the rubber band just a little less tightly , and if they had chosen to cross the aisle and work in a bipartisan fashion on taxes , on spending , and on other items that affect the shape and nature of the budget .  we have not seen that , and so that is why we are here today with the necessity to pass a continuing resolution .  i will vote for the continuing resolution at this point because we need to keep the government open , but i am certainly not very pleased with how we have gotten here .  