Thomas Daschle: “let me congratulate the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, our chairman of the Appropriations Committee, for his…”

“let me congratulate the distinguished Senator from West Virginia, our chairman of the Appropriations Committee, for his eloquence and for his wisdom. I share his view on the propriety of the tax cut. I share his pride in the actions taken by the Appropriations Committee in this body over the last several weeks as we have attempted to make up for lost time on the appropriations process. We inherited a horrendous schedule. Slowly but surely we have been catching up. Were it not for his leadership and his absolute determination to get back on track, we could not have a full appreciation of how far we have come in the last couple of weeks. As he said, we have done it staying within the budget parameters outlined in the budget resolution. We have not broken the caps, once again demonstrating the fiscal discipline so critical when we began this process several months ago. We will continue our work when we return. I commend the Senator for his comments today, as well as for his work throughout the last several weeks in reaching this point.”