Charles E. Grassley: “this morning in the newspaper there were reports of a leading Republican Senator saying that we ought to ditch the…”

“this morning in the newspaper there were reports of a leading Republican Senator saying that we ought to ditch the Exon-Grassley amendment which cut $26 billion from the budget resolution as it passed the House of Representatives and that he was prepared to support that in conference, and that is in a sense what 60- some Senators on three different occasions said on the floor of this Senate in backing that cut, that that ought to be disregarded by the conferees. I am one of the conferees. I do not think so. I think we are on the right track, and I hope that we can persuade a majority of our colleagues on the Senate side on the conference to stick with the Senate's position, and I hope that we can sell to the House conferees what they were just about told to do on the floor of the Senate as a motion to instruct those conferees came up with 14 votes which instruction was that the House conferees ought to adopt the Senate's position on the budget. I think that we are hearing the Chicken Littles squawking, trying to convince us all that the sky is falling, when they say all the bad things that are going to happen if Exon-Grassley is adopted.”