Judd Gregg: “to respond in part--and in whole, hopefully--to some of the points that have been made here, let me begin by saying I…”

“to respond in part--and in whole, hopefully--to some of the points that have been made here, let me begin by saying I have an immense amount of respect for the chairman of the committee and for the Senator from Missouri, for the ranking Democrat on the committee, the Senator from Vermont, a neighbor who is retiring and who has done great service for our country and has decided to relax and go back to a beautiful State. Of course, he is going to go to New Hampshire to buy his goods because we don't have a sales tax, by the way. The chairman does exemplary work. He has been a tireless advocate, obviously, of trying to get this highway bill across the floor. Honestly, I thought the Budget Committee had done its job when we went to the $284 billion number, which was a lot higher than where the President had started. I thought the President had done his job when he went to the $284 billion number as a compromise which was a lot higher than he started out. I think he was at $250 billion when he began this process. I thought we had reached agreement. Then Friday morning at 1 a.m., when we passed the budget, I was pretty sure we reached an agreement. The agreement was $284 billion. Unfortunately, the amendment which showed up Monday night put a pretty big hole in that budget--$11.5 billion.…”