Harry Reid: “As I am here in the Chamber today, there are four members of the Appropriations Committee: The Presiding Officer, the…”

“As I am here in the Chamber today, there are four members of the Appropriations Committee: The Presiding Officer, the senior Senator from Vermont, the Senator from Nevada, and the Senator from Illinois. This morning I asked, Why aren't we able to do appropriations bills? The House has gone home. They are AWOL. So matters that we have to resolve in conference we can't do either. We have six that have not passed this body. The Senator from Vermont hit the nail on the head. I commented this morning, we can think of a lot of reasons that the bills haven't passed. One is what the President has done with the monetary functions of this country. The economy is in disastrous shape. If we did these appropriations bills now, there would be a focus on each bill. The people of America would say: Well, they can't do that for us. Look at what they have just done for Iraq with $21 billion. So the Senator from Vermont hit the nail on the head. I compliment him for recognizing the problem we have. What are we going to do? I think the Senator from Vermont will agree, we are going to have an omnibus bill with as many as 10 appropriations bills jammed into it.”