Max Baucus: “in the last couple of hours, in my judgment, this debate has turned into a rather partisan matter, with Republicans…”

“in the last couple of hours, in my judgment, this debate has turned into a rather partisan matter, with Republicans lining up on one side and Democrats lining up on the other. That is fine. I mean, each Senator has his right to say what he or she thinks. That is why we all ran for office and why we are here doing our very best for our constituents. But I also think that our people at home want us to, as much as possible, work together. Sure, some of us have differences, but, as much as possible, they want us to work together for the best interests of the American people. That, I think, is why the President worked with the Congress to try to fashion, and did fashion, a budget agreement--an agreement which will reduce the budget deficit by the year 2002; an agreement which contains provisions that the President, the chief Democrat in our country, wanted; and provisions which the Republican leadership in the Congress wanted. It is not the best agreement in the world, but we are a democracy and democracies sometimes are messy and uneven. But it was a pretty good agreement, by most Americans' standards. The House then attempted to put together its portion of the agreement. I might say that the Ways and Means Committee got pretty partisan. Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee fought vociferously with Republicans on Ways and Means. But the Republicans have a majority of the votes, so they won.…”