Pete Domenici: “I merely call to the attention that right now, this year--we did get a budget last year. We did not get it out of…”

“I merely call to the attention that right now, this year--we did get a budget last year. We did not get it out of committee, but the statute did not require that. I do not want to debate that issue. I merely mentioned that my good friend was producing a litany of things that were causing the delay, and I thought it was a little bit lopsided toward blaming the administration for the delays. A lot of them are our fault, starting with the fact that we do not have a budget. Yes, the President has a different approach to what he wants to use the money for than we do, but we better get on with it. It is not too much different than most Presidents in sending us their budgets, and the sooner we get on with facing up to our responsibility the better we are. We have been sitting around waiting for somebody else--and it was not the President--for a long time in the Senate, as time ran buy and the appropriations were needed. We are going to get them done just like we do every other year.”