Pete Domenici: “I say to both Senators and the managers, if there is something further that I might accomplish later on, I will come…”

“I say to both Senators and the managers, if there is something further that I might accomplish later on, I will come down again and I will go back through the Record and answer them as I see them. First of all, let me suggest, on your last question about why in one section and not in the other, with reference to the impossibility of doing it, we have 11 years, my staff tells me, of experience in estimating the cost of public mandates. We do not have any experience in estimating the cost of private sector mandates, to speak of. That means that clearly the Congressional Budget Office, which has to gear up for this entire episode, both public and private--we know it is going to take some additional money, but we also know it is going to take brand-new staff, and we are fully aware, while we are cutting everything, that has to go up a little. We need to give some latitude on the private end because we have not done it, and we follow up and say since we have been doing it on the public we ought to be able to.”