Pete Domenici: “Senator Harkin, let me thank you very, very much for the consideration you are giving us today in letting this very…”

“Senator Harkin, let me thank you very, very much for the consideration you are giving us today in letting this very important bill pass. I think the Senator knows that while a lot of what I do as chairman of the Budget Committee is fun work, a lot of it isn't very much fun. That part that isn't very much fun is the issue of who is right on the scoring--OMB or CBO. I am charged with the responsibility, if there is a difference between them, of going through it, line by line, program by program, with my staff, and if there are, indeed, errors that run in favor of OMB, which means you would have more money to spend, if they are based on policy differences that were not taken into consideration when CBO did theirs, we make the adjustment. I can report, as staff on your committee knows, we have found $215 million in outlays where we found policy errors, and they came mostly from the IDEA program where they made changes and they were taken into consideration regarding the new policy costs, so we are at $215 now. I assure the Senator that I am totally aware of the difficulties in the bill.”