Kent Conrad: “I say to colleagues on our side of the aisle, what we are attempting to do is change the way we handle the budget debate…”

“I say to colleagues on our side of the aisle, what we are attempting to do is change the way we handle the budget debate this year and to do it in a way that will have more of the votes occur before the vote-athon on Thursday night. That is what Senator Gregg and I are attempting to accomplish. It is going to take cooperation. What we are doing with our colleagues now, we have agreed on the first six amendments to be debated and the time for each. What we are asking our colleagues to do is agree to exchange time for certainty-- certainty of when their amendment would be considered, certainty for the amount of time they would have but less time than they could have under the rules. People can disagree and they can say: No, we won't agree to that. If they don't agree, we are going to be right back in the soup, and we will be here until the wee hours Thursday. We don't think that is the best way to debate this issue. We don't think that is the best way for colleagues, all of our colleagues, to have the best chance of having their amendments considered. So I am sending this message out to colleagues: If we work together, I think we can improve this budget debate process and have a whole series of votes tomorrow afternoon that we won't then have to have Thursday and do it again the next day and do it again the next day. That is what we are asking colleagues to do. Mr. President, would 20 minutes be sufficient for the Senator from North Dakota?”