Pete Domenici: “In fact, we almost got an amendment on the floor.”

It cries out for flexibility to save money, to do things right, to prevent harming people when they do not have to be.

I want to say to all of you that what we have produced by way of a budget, a plan, should really be taken seriously by all of you.

I think it is very important, for some of you who have gone through lame duck, to make sure that you know it is not the best choice of an arena to which you would assign the solution of major problems.

If indeed you intend to have a bipartisan solution, then obviously you have to do some of the things we are talking about, some give-and-take.