Judd Gregg: “I begin by thanking the committee, the committee staff, both the majority and Democratic side, for the assistance in…”

“I begin by thanking the committee, the committee staff, both the majority and Democratic side, for the assistance in getting us to this point. We had a markup last Thursday which was done very professionally. A lot of issues were raised. A lot of votes were taken. We were able to complete the budget on a timely schedule pursuant to the rules of the Senate. Now we are in the Senate. As everyone knows, under the rules of the Senate, we have 50 hours on the bill. Then we have what is known as the vote-arama. The Senator from North Dakota and I have been talking. We hope we can coordinate things so that Members will be comfortable getting their amendments up and have adequate time and have certainty as to when their amendments are coming up, and in doing that, hopefully, actually reduce the vote-arama at the end. And cooperation would be helpful. Right off the bat, I thank the Senator from North Dakota and his staff. They have been extraordinarily cooperative as we moved forward throughout this process. Let me ask Members, if Members have an amendment, all on our side, tell us about it so we can get you a time slot. On the substance of the bill, the purpose of a budget, of course, is to be a blueprint for how the Government will spend its money in the coming year. The year for our Government begins on October 1, 2006. We are already into the 2006 year, so this is the budget for 2007.…”