On the recordMay 16, 2012
I think the law even requires it. I think the leader on the other side, the majority leader, has been pretty clear about it. It is bad politics to have a budget, bad politics to tell the American people officially what we are for, bad politics for our Members to have to go on record saying what they are for. The President submitted a budget. There are 54 Members of the President's party here in the Senate. Fifty-one of them could pass this budget. It would be the Senate-passed budget. Then you would go to the House and say: OK, let's look at the House budget and the Senate budget and see if we can agree on a budget. But they actually have been pretty transparent. You have to give them some credit for not trying to be different than they really are. They said: It would be politically foolish for us to pass a budget because then people would know what every one of the 51 of our Members is for, and they would have to say what they are for. My guess is that nobody in the majority will say they are for anything today--not for the President's budget, not for any budget we will submit. So you go home and say: I am not for any of that. You can't accuse me of being for a bad plan because I am for no plan. That is where we are.
