Byron Dorgan: “It seems to me the question of how much money shall be allocated to committees to run the operations of the Senate…”

“It seems to me the question of how much money shall be allocated to committees to run the operations of the Senate around here ought not be difficult to resolve. In the last Congress we had 51 Democrats, 49 Republicans, and we had an even split with a slight differential for administration. Now we have 51 Republicans and 49 Democrats. It seems to me we ought to have exactly the same split as we did in the last Congress, just in reverse. I don't understand why the majority now will not do for the minority as we did last year when we were in the majority for the Republican side. It doesn't make any sense to me. This ought not be rocket science trying to put this together. It is about fairness. We ought to have exactly the same circumstance we gave to the Republicans in the last Congress. It is unseemly to me we are having this lengthy debate about it. We have foreign policy questions and challenges in Iraq and Korea and elsewhere. We have very significant challenges with respect to the economy in this country.”