Judd Gregg: “I had, as a matter of courtesy, yielded the floor so the Senator from Maryland could speak; he said for 10 minutes. It…”

“I had, as a matter of courtesy, yielded the floor so the Senator from Maryland could speak; he said for 10 minutes. It has now been a half hour. Cooperation does help in this institution. Cooperation also helps on bills such as this. The Senator from North Dakota has taken considerable time to talk about the reduction in the deficit in the 1990s and the fact that we went into surplus, claiming it as an action of the Democratic Party. The deficit reduction which occurred during that part, there was another player in that, and that was the Republican Congress which essentially asked President Clinton to pursue a course of a balanced budget. And with some reticence, the final agreement was reached, and a balanced budget bill was passed. It was passed in cooperation. There was cooperation from Republican membership with a Democratic President. It would be nice if we had that cooperation today from our Democratic colleagues. I find it uniquely ironic that they have decided to oppose a bill which reduces the deficit by $35 billion--that initially was the demand; it was a proposal put forward; now it is up to $39 billion--on the representation that, well, they can't support this bill because there may be a later bill that gives tax relief. You can't have it both ways. You can't claim you are for deficit reduction and for reducing the debt and then vote against the one opportunity you are going to have to do so. The one opportunity is this bill.…”