David Thomas: “I guess everyone is thoroughly confused right now, based upon the statements made by my colleagues on the other side of…”

“I guess everyone is thoroughly confused right now, based upon the statements made by my colleagues on the other side of the aisle: Why do we not do this in the light of day? Do we know where and how we are going to be spending any of this money? I hate to be the one to tell my colleagues, if they are not aware of it, but the House and the Senate have already passed a budget. That budget takes care of paying down the debt. It covers Medicare. It protects Social Security. It provides more than sufficient money for defense. I find it ironic they have now reached a point that on a Republican administration, with the former Secretary of Defense as the Vice President, the former military chief of staff as the Secretary of State, and with the honored Donald Rumsfeld as the Secretary of Defense that we are worried about whether or not the defense of this country is going to be taken care of. Where were my colleagues in the last administration based upon the folk who were running the show? I hate to tell my colleagues this, but we have already passed three tax bills. It was more than a month ago. Even above the Arctic Circle, the sun does not stay up that long. And I know some of my colleagues want to make this a partisan fight, but on one of those tax bills that we passed, the marriage penalty, there were 64 Democrats that agreed with us. We do not call that partisan; we call it bipartisan.”