Don Nickles: “I urge my colleagues not to waive the Budget Act with respect to the point of order for a lot of different reasons. One…”

“I urge my colleagues not to waive the Budget Act with respect to the point of order for a lot of different reasons. One, I wish we had a budget. Somebody said we could have passed a budget. Maybe the Budget Committee was going to pass a higher number. Unfortunately, this is the first time since 1974 that we have not had a budget pass the Senate. Maybe one of the most fiscally irresponsible things we have not done is not pass a budget. We are still under the constraints of last year's budget. Last year, we overwhelmingly passed a budget and set up $200 billion, $300 billion, and it was passed by the Finance Committee. Really what we should do is direct the Finance Committee to pass a bipartisan bill. I looked at the last 22 years, and the Finance Committee has dealt with major Medicare and Medicaid reforms, every one of which passed with bipartisan support except one. Only once did we bypass the committee. Unfortunately, the Democrat leadership said: We are not going to go through the Finance Committee because we think it will report out something we do not like. So they came up with a partisan bill, and we are playing ping-pong. I looked at the amendment we are considering right now. It is 102 pages. It was still warm off the press, and nobody on this side, with one exception maybe, had seen this amendment before it was offered yesterday.”