Tom Harkin: “Now we are going to accept $78 million in administrative costs, which we know we can't do? I know I have some people on…”

“Now we are going to accept $78 million in administrative costs, which we know we can't do? I know I have some people on this side of the aisle who want to come over and offer amendments that will cut administrative costs. I just ask my friend, the chairman, are we just going to accept them then? Are we going to accept every amendment that comes over that cuts administrative costs to increase education or whatever it might be? If we are going to do that, then I have no objection to the amendment of the Senator from Oklahoma. But if we are going to pick and choose, well, then, maybe we ought to think about which amendments and how we are going to balance these off between maybe amendments on that side and amendments on this side. Are we going to have a $100 million cutoff or a $150 million cutoff on administrative costs and say we will take the first ones out of the block up to that point? Where do we draw the line? We are going to have Senators on this side of the aisle come over here and offer amendments of the same magnitude, and they are going to take it out of administrative costs. I ask, will we just accept them?”