Thomas Daschle: “First of all, I don't know of a time when the Congress required the President to submit a budget that we were in total…”

“First of all, I don't know of a time when the Congress required the President to submit a budget that we were in total agreement with. That isn't what we do here. We are not waiting for the perfect document to come from the White House. That isn't what we did in past Congresses. It isn't what we did with Republican or Democratic Presidents. The President submits a vehicle, the President submits a budget, and we either accept it as the vehicle and mark up the vehicle and provide a budget that will allow the consensus to work its will, Republicans and Democrats, or we present an alternative. My argument this year is that, so far, the Republicans have done neither. They have said we don't like the Democratic budget, but they have not proposed one either. As I said in my comments a moment ago, time is running out. April 15 is soon to be here. We don't have many more days, legally, for the Republicans and the Democrats to do what my friend suggests we do--work together to come up with some resolution.”