Tom Harkin: “the fact remains that none of our appropriations bills were passed this year, even though our subcommittees on…”

“the fact remains that none of our appropriations bills were passed this year, even though our subcommittees on appropriations passed out all of our bills. We passed them through the Appropriations Committee and brought them to the Senate for consideration, but they were not taken up on the floor. Again, we can go into all the reasons why yes, why no. But that is water over the dam. The fact is, they weren't; therefore, they weren't passed. At the end of the year, a week ago, Leader Reid wanted to put together all the bills that had been passed out of committee with both Republican and Democratic support. Of the 13 bills--and I could be a little mistaken--only 1 or 2 had any minor changes or votes against them in committee. They were almost all unanimous by Republicans and Democrats. So to keep the government going, we had this omnibus--in other words, putting all the bills together in one package and passing that.”