Pete Domenici: “I came here to just spread the Record with a couple of minutes of my observations about the WRDA bill and to suggest…”

“I came here to just spread the Record with a couple of minutes of my observations about the WRDA bill and to suggest that the President of the United States made a mistake. This bill should not have been vetoed. This bill is totally an authorizing bill. Now, I don't want to say he made a mistake and then talk technical language that nobody understands, but in the Congress, we have a way of spending money. We have a way of spending money called appropriations, and we have a way of spending money that is an entitlement, such as Social Security or veterans' pensions, and then we have another way where we just authorize a program to be funded later, if at all--to be funded later, maybe--and that is an authorization bill. This WRDA bill is the result of a 7-year effort on the part of the committee of jurisdiction to put together a composite of all of the public works projects from around the country so that when somebody seeks to get them funded, they can say they have been authorized by the Congress. However, that doesn't mean they will ever get funded.”