Kent Conrad: “I suppose reasonable people could differ on what constitutes a budget for 2 years. The amendment that was offered last…”

“I suppose reasonable people could differ on what constitutes a budget for 2 years. The amendment that was offered last year was an attempt to adopt the budget that had been formed in the Budget Committee. And what that amendment provided--and I have it before me now and the Senator is correct--was caps on spending. It provided, for fiscal 2003, an overall amount for discretionary spending of $764,722,000,000. For the highway category, it provided $28.9 billion in outlays. For the mass transit category, it provided $1.445 billion. For the conservation spending category, it provided $1.922 billion. It provided the framework--perhaps that is the best way to say it--of the budget that we had constructed in the committee. It was an attempt to give the appropriators the budget framework to go forward so they could do their work. That is what the attempt was. I think it is fair to say it was not a full budget resolution. I would say that to my colleague. A full budget resolution is not a 2-year document. What the Budget Committee does with the full budget resolution is either a 5-year or a 10-year allocation of resources, both for taxing and spending. But it became evident we did not have the votes for that.”