Kent Conrad: “I rise today as a senior member of the Budget Committee to talk about what I see as a breakdown in the budget process in…”

“I rise today as a senior member of the Budget Committee to talk about what I see as a breakdown in the budget process in the Senate. I think every member of the Budget Committee and every Member of the Senate ought to be concerned about what has happened the last several years but even more dramatically this year, in what can only be called a virtual meltdown of the budget process. Those who are watching may say, well, what do we care what the budget process is. We care about the budget outcome. And that is exactly right. The most important thing is the budget outcome. But many times how you start has a lot to do with how you end up, and I am afraid we have now developed a disastrous operating procedure around here. We start out with a fiction of a budget; we end up with no accountability, no control, and chaos at the end. That is where we are today. This is chaos. Every Member of the Senate knows that is true. We have a circumstance now where bills are passed in committee, never come to the floor of the Senate, go to a conference committee, the Democrats are locked out of the conference committee, and Senators are denied their right to offer amendments to improve legislation. That is not the way the process is supposed to work. Together we have to mend it. If we don't, we are going to have a circumstance where someday, when the Democrats are going to be back in control, we can operate this way.”