David Thomas: “I am very pleased my associates could come over this morning and talk about some of the programs that are before us, to…”

“I am very pleased my associates could come over this morning and talk about some of the programs that are before us, to talk about some of the directions we will be taking. I think there is another area, in addition to what has been talked about, that is right before us. We are dealing now with spending. We are now in the process of finishing the appropriations process. Congress must adopt 13 different appropriations bills for future spending of the Government and we are in the process of doing that. We also have some budget limitations that we have placed on ourselves, some caps that we have to honor. We are dealing also with emergency spending. We have talked some now about the surpluses that have been available. The surpluses that are available this year, however, are generally Social Security dollars. But there are $14 billion in the regular budget and those will, of course, be available. Most of those have already been set aside as emergency spending. What we have before us is an opportunity to continue to work and complete this matter of funding the budget for this year. At the same time, we must pass it on to the White House. We must find some agreement, either that or have some continuing resolutions that will put us into the future or, in fact, we are faced with the possibility of the President vetoing the legislation and of having the Government shut down, as happened in the past. I hope this will not be the case.”