Mike Levin: “Madam President, I take a few minutes today, despite my hoarse voice, to discuss the fiscal year 2007 spending…”

“Madam President, I take a few minutes today, despite my hoarse voice, to discuss the fiscal year 2007 spending resolution that we will be debating next week. The operations of the Federal Government are currently being funded by a temporary spending measure that expires on February 15, and the proposed resolution will fund the Government for the rest of the year. It is important we understand how we got to this point. Last year, we did not debate and pass all of our annual spending bills before the November elections. When we came back after the election for the lameduck session, a few Members worked successfully to stop Congress from passing a last-minute, foot-tall omnibus spending bill--like this one--that would have been filled with thousands of wasteful earmarks. As a result, we passed an earmark-free stopgap spending measure that, if continued, would have saved the American taxpayer some $17 billion. There were several media reports last year that said Republicans were trying to push this debate into the future so Democrats would have to clean up this mess. That may have been true for some, but it was never true for me.”