Byron Dorgan: “Finally, I hope this week we can get the Speaker of the House to appoint conferees, have a conference and get a…”

“Finally, I hope this week we can get the Speaker of the House to appoint conferees, have a conference and get a conference report, and get a line-item veto in the hands of this President. Again, if we have time for book tours and writing books and doing a lot of other things, we ought to have time, it seems to me, to be able to pick a few friends to be on a conference committee and be serious about the things many Members of Congress campaigned on. If they believe in a line-item veto, let us decide to give that to this President right now and see if we cannot cut some of the pork in the appropriations bills moving through the House and Senate, including all kinds of lard now stuck to these bills for the districts of folks who have been bellowing the loudest about the problems of Federal spending. The problems of Federal spending seem to stop when this is their district and their appropriations bill, and it also seems to stop when it comes to getting serious about sending to this President a line-item veto that would be put in the hands of this President.”