Kent Conrad: “The Wall Street Journal, back in July, had this headline: ``The GOP Uses Two Sets Of Books.'' Now we are going to have a…”

“The Wall Street Journal, back in July, had this headline: ``The GOP Uses Two Sets Of Books.'' Now we are going to have a new headline: ``The GOP Uses Two Calendars.'' We have the one with 12 months, which I guess will run all the rest of our lives, but for budget purposes we will have 13 months. The second part of the story in the Washington Post today said: Senate Republican leaders embrace a longer fiscal year to ease spending woes. They want to spend the money, but they want to make it appear as though there is less spending in this year, so they add a 13th month. I don't think that is going to fool anybody. It certainly should be outside the rules of this body, if we are going to be serious about maintaining the fiscal discipline that has done so much to restore the fiscal integrity of this country. For the first time in 30 years, we have been able to balance the budget, largely as a result of the 1993 budget plan we passed. We received no help from our friends on the Republican side--not a single Republican vote, not one. That was a plan which put us on a path to reduce the deficit each and every year of the 5 years of that plan. In 1997, we added a little bit. That was done on a bipartisan basis. That was good. We did something together. But now our Republican friends are retreating to the notion that the way to solve the fiscal problems of the United States is to add a 13th month. That cannot be a serious proposal.”