Byron Dorgan: “In fact, our colleague from Idaho is on the Appropriations Committee. The first thing you have to do is appropriate the…”

“In fact, our colleague from Idaho is on the Appropriations Committee. The first thing you have to do is appropriate the money for the agencies--the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, all the law enforcement functions--and then all of the other functions of the Federal Government. We have to pass the appropriations bills. We are now operating under a continuing appropriations bill because we in Congress did not get our work done by October 1. It is not as if we are not trying. Senator Byrd and Senator Stevens, the chairman and ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, are pushing very hard, and we cannot get the appropriations bills to the floor of the Senate. Do my colleagues know why? Because there is an objection to a motion to proceed to an appropriations bill.”