On the recordJuly 21, 2004
The appropriations bill is a must-pass bill. It will pass eventually. I cannot say when. We are going to pass it. I cannot say when it might get final passage, considering the other body has to deal with it; but the appropriations bill has to pass as all appropriations bills have to pass, or the government shuts down. We have not let that happen for a long time, and we are not going to let it happen now; but it is a shame that we have to use, as the gentleman from Missouri said, the round robin way to get to this when we could have had it done and over with and on the way to the Senate if we would have just passed this bill the way that the committee wrote it with the bipartisan support of everybody involved, except the Committee on the Budget.
Source
govinfo.gov
