On the recordApril 8, 2011
throughout this day a lot of our constituents back home have been watching the debate. I wonder maybe if they are a little frustrated. I talked earlier this morning about throwing rotten apples at each other. There has been a lot of that today. I am not going to do that tonight. I suggested this morning one of the things we could do while we are waiting to see whether an agreement can be reached to fund the government over this fiscal year is to try to shed some light on the process which undoubtedly is a bit confusing to people: What exactly is it that we are arguing about, how did we get here, and what do we have in the future. We talked a little bit this morning, and what we are talking about today, and what we are hoping to achieve tonight, is an agreement that would determine how much we will spend to fund the Federal Government for the next approximately 6 months through the end of September, which is the end of the fiscal year that begins each October 1. That is an important proposition. It is important enough that there has been a lot of very difficult debate about that, as people have seen over the last several days, and certainly today. It appears there is still a bit of a deadlock over exactly how much money should be saved in the last 6 months of this fiscal year.…





