Frank Lautenberg: “I am pleased to join the manager of the Budget Committee in supporting the conference report on the budget resolution.…”

“I am pleased to join the manager of the Budget Committee in supporting the conference report on the budget resolution. Consensus is a fairly simple word with very dramatic meaning. It is the majority view--not the unanimous view but the majority view--of the participants in an agreement in a debate. And I want to just take a moment to remind everybody about the fact that this is a consensus agreement. Those who are looking for total victory are not going to find it here and those who are looking for total defeat are not going to find it here. A consensus view, the majority view is what we strove for. I am unhappy with some things, and I am sure my colleague on the other side of the aisle is also unhappy with some of these things. But we struck an agreement in good faith. We worked very hard. We worked hard to get it through the conference and we thought that we had a continuation of the understanding that was arrived at when we shook hands a few weeks ago and presented the Senate side of the budget understanding, the budget resolution. As I said in my first remarks, I fully support this agreement. That doesn't mean I support it enthusiastically, but it means that it has my commitment because we worked so hard and we got so many good things in this budget resolution.”