David Thomas: “I rise to reflect a little bit on the past year but, more importantly, to reflect on it as it pertains to what we do in…”

“I rise to reflect a little bit on the past year but, more importantly, to reflect on it as it pertains to what we do in the coming year. I am sorry this year has ended in the conflict over the balanced budget. That has been one of the principal items of this entire year. We have worked on it almost all year. We worked on it in terms of a constitutional amendment to balance the budget. It failed by one vote. We worked on it then through the appropriations process into a reconciliation balanced budget bill, which changed a great many things. A balanced budget is much more than, of course, simply arithmetic or numbers. It is a fundamental change in the direction this Government takes. So I am sorry that we ended up with this conflict, and I am sorry that Federal employees have become sort of trapped in it. I hope that that changes soon. I hope more than anything that we are able to complete the work that we started on the balanced budget.”