Thad Cochran: “first, I want to express my deepest appreciation for the compliments and recognition given to me for reaching the…”

“first, I want to express my deepest appreciation for the compliments and recognition given to me for reaching the milestone of casting 10,000 votes in the Senate. I sincerely thank all of those who said such generous things about me and my service in this body. It is with decidedly mixed feelings that I join my distinguished friend from West Virginia, the chairman of our Committee on Appropriations, in calling up and discussing H.J. Res. 20, the continuing resolution. This is the fourth continuing resolution we will have considered in this fiscal cycle, but without question it is the most critical. It is critical because it provides more than $463 billion to fund, for the remainder of this fiscal year, virtually all of the agencies and activities of the Federal Government outside the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, as well as certain critical problems within the Department of Defense itself. It is a very important piece of legislation. Yet the way the legislation is constructed concerns me greatly. It is an odd hybrid between a continuing resolution and an Omnibus appropriations bill. Continuing resolutions are not a desirable means of funding the operations of Government over the long term or in the routine way of providing funding. They are useful in buying time until Congress can complete its work on individual appropriations bills, but they are blunt, formula-driven instruments.…”