Kent Conrad: “it is important for colleagues to know what we are doing. We are going to go to vote-arama starting at 1:30 tomorrow…”

“it is important for colleagues to know what we are doing. We are going to go to vote-arama starting at 1:30 tomorrow afternoon. Prior to that time, we are going to have some time for additional amendments until the votes at 10:30. As the chairman has indicated, at 10:30 we will have votes on the debt limit. We will then have votes on the avian flu amendments that were put off from this evening. After those votes are concluded, we will go back to amendments until 1:30. Now, what does that mean? That means we have very restricted time tomorrow morning. We have very restricted time after the votes tomorrow, until 1:30 for additional amendments. The only way people are going to get time is if they take very short time agreements. That is the only alternative we have. Again, I explain to my colleagues, I apologize, but the fact is, our time for budget discussion has been dramatically reduced this year because of extraneous events. It is just a fact. The debt limit was put into this, the joint session, these series of meetings that are important bipartisan meetings at the White House. The chairman would agree that we have had probably the most difficult time managing this budget because there is so much less time available this year. I ask for colleagues to understand if they want time they are going to have to take very short time agreements tomorrow; otherwise, they will be in a vote-arama.…”