On the recordMay 16, 2012
I remind my colleagues of the old adage that you can make excuses or you can make progress but you cannot make both--at least not simultaneously. Our current course is unsustainable. Maintaining the status quo will inevitably impair our ability to fund everything from defense to entitlements. So sticking to this course isn't the solution. It can't be the solution. And if followed as a solution, it will have an impact that will prove devastating to America's most vulnerable populations. It is for exactly that reason I have proposed this budget--a budget that balances within 5 years, a budget that simplifies the Tax Code, a budget that puts health care decisions back into the hands of individual families, individuals themselves, and their doctors, where those decisions properly belong. We don't have much time. We have to get this done. I urge my colleagues to support this budget. I yield the floor. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
