Rob Portman: “It is important that we keep our time frame because it is important that we have our appropriations bills done in a…”

“It is important that we keep our time frame because it is important that we have our appropriations bills done in a timely manner. So we are still hopeful that can happen, but we have had some delays in the markup today. We did get started on the markup. We had some good opening statements, and we are going back into committee later today, but there are currently negotiations over whether we can finish that today or not. I will say that we are excited about the budget document. It does restrain spending, which we believe is the right thing to do. There have been some disagreements between the bodies, even between Members, on both sides of the aisle, over some of the budget enforcement mechanisms. Those are more the issues here that have to do with caps and PAYGOs and those sorts of issues; but the budget itself, this resolution, we hope to be able to mark up today. If not, we will certainly mark it up next week.”