J. Exon: “I simply say that there undoubtedly will be opposition to this Grassley-Exon amendment. I certainly do not think it is…”

“I simply say that there undoubtedly will be opposition to this Grassley-Exon amendment. I certainly do not think it is proper for me to be managing the time in opposition to an amendment that I am a cosponsor of. So I just alert Senators who are likely opposed to this amendment that they should come here, and someone should assume the responsibility for managing the time against the amendment. First, Mr. President, I am reminded of a couple years ago when the Democrats were the majority party in the Senate. And I teamed up with Senator Grassley for an Exon-Grassley amendment at that time that proposed to cut $26 billion in outlays and $42 billion in budget authority over a 5-year period. We were working on a 5-year proposition then. Do you remember the wailings at the time? The Secretary of Defense, who is still the Secretary of Defense, the Assistant Secretary of Defense, who is now Director of the CIA, and others, moaned and groaned, and the wailing went on about how Exon-Grassley was devastating our defense budget. Well, they did not have the horses. Exon-Grassley at that time passed. And it was a modest step at that time dedicated to reducing the deficit.”