Chuck Grassley: “the Congress is now engaged in the business of passing a budget to fund this Government for another year. This process…”

“the Congress is now engaged in the business of passing a budget to fund this Government for another year. This process is one of the most important pieces of business that this body engages in. In discussing where and how and for what we spend the public's money on public business in the public interest is one of the most compelling stories of government. I wish that more of our fellow citizens watched the debates on this floor as we argue among ourselves on their behalf how best to spend their hard earned dollars. It is an important lesson in civics. It is a course in practical politics, on how real differences on important matters of substance are resolved. It is sometimes not an elegant process but it is one of the critical features of democratic government. One of the most inelegant parts of the process, is the fact that legislating budgets is not coherent in the sum of its parts. We divide our budget consideration into many pieces. It's the only practical way to deal with the problem of how to spend money. This means, however, that money and the politics that it is spent on is similarly considered in its many parts, not as a whole.”