On the recordFebruary 8, 2018
we find ourselves in another position like those we have found ourselves in before. We find ourselves in a position in which the government's spending authority is set to expire in just a few hours. We have known this was coming for weeks, just as we did with the last continuing resolution and the one before that and the one before that. As Jacques Cousteau once observed: ``We are living in an interminable succession of absurdities imposed by the myopic logic of short-term thinking.'' Every time, we approach this as if it were somehow going to be different this time. We quibble from time to time about this or that policy. We quibble from time to time about the price tag. Sometimes we are so focused on the policy and the price tag that we forget about the process. It is primarily to this subject, the process, that I would like to turn my attention for the next few minutes. You see, the process is important around here. We come from different backgrounds. We come from different States. We represent diverse interests across this great country. We are not going to agree on everything. In fact, there are a lot of things on which we strongly disagree. That is why we have processes. The Constitution is, itself, all about the process. In fact, the Constitution is more or less agnostic as to the substantive policy outcome. It is all about connecting the American people to their government, which is there to serve them.…
