Bob Dole: “I just want to give my colleagues a status report on where I think we are. I believe we are making progress, but I am…”

“I just want to give my colleagues a status report on where I think we are. I believe we are making progress, but I am not certain because I see some additional amendments that have been added, additional cost items, add-backs--about $60 million. Then the offset has been reduced by about $60 million. It is about $120 million that has sort of disappeared here without our knowledge on this side. We are perfectly willing to discuss these items or look at offsets that might be offered. $46 million for Job Corps; I do not know where that came from. That came out of the blue; never discussed it yesterday. TRIO, whatever TRIO is; immigration and education; substance abuse and mental health--all these things. There is already a great deal of money in the bill for all of these programs. Then the IRS offset disappeared. That was $50 million. Library is $10 million; maybe one or two others. So we have sort of gone backwards on the deficit reduction and forwards on spending more money. Now, maybe in the overall mix of things, because this is about a $16 billion rescission package, we should not quarrel about $120 million. But I think there may be principle involved here, too. If we are going to negotiate, then we ought to negotiate and finish this bill, or finish it tomorrow. I am not going to stay here very much longer tonight if we are not making any more progress than we are. So we will come back tomorrow.”