On the recordSeptember 29, 2010
Most Americans believe government spends too much, especially at a time when their budgets, as I said, have been shrinking. This is the kind of amendment that ought to attract broad bipartisan support. We are going to fund the government with this continuing resolution until December 3 because, again, we have not passed any appropriations bills or a budget--which, by the way is a discussion, perhaps, for another day but one that I think needs to be joined, a debate that needs to be joined, and that is, what are we going to do to fix this broken-down budget process that year after year puts us in a position where, at the very end of the fiscal year, we have to pass a continuing resolution because we have not gotten our work done? That is an incredibly strange way to run a $3.5 trillion enterprise like the Federal Government. I think the American people deserve better. They need a budget process that has some teeth in it, that is binding, that makes sense, where there is an appropriate role for oversight, as the Senator from Oklahoma pointed out--all the agencies where there is duplication and redundancy where we can find savings.
