On the recordDecember 15, 2010
I commend the Senator from California on her remarks. As a member of Foreign Relations, I voted to bring the treaty to the floor. However, there is another pressing matter I wish to discuss this evening. The Senate now has before it the START treaty, but on a parallel track we have before us the question of financing the government through the end of the fiscal year next year. There are three alternatives available to us. One of them is a continuing resolution through the end of next year. One of them is a continuing resolution that is modified with an Omnibus appropriations that is put on top of it which I understand is the plan. There is a third option which is the short-term CR. It is that question I rise to address for a few moments. Forty-three days ago, I ran for reelection to the Senate. For 2 years, I traveled the State of Georgia campaigning for my reelection. Throughout that campaign, there were three guiding issues on which I focused. One was tax policy. At a time of economic recession and high unemployment, the worst thing for us to do is to raise taxes of the American people and, in particular, small business, which hires the majority of the people. That is No. 1. No. 2, I campaigned on the fact that we didn't have a revenue problem nearly as much as we had a spending problem; that we needed to ask of ourselves, as Senators, what every American family has had to ask of themselves at home.…
