On the recordApril 25, 2012
I thank the leaders for their excellent work and the people who joined them. I think the policy has been debated well. I do wish to say, at the beginning there was discussion that there be a 60- vote threshold at the end and that some of the amendments might improve the funding aspect. I still want to say one more time that a vote for this bill is a vote to increase our deficit this year by $11 billion and a vote to violate the Budget Control Act that we just passed last year. I appreciate the work. I do wish we had worked to pay for this. We have not done that. I would like to remind everyone voting for this that we are, in fact, adding $11 billion to our deficit, more so than was laid out by the Budget Control Act. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader is recognized. Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I wish to take a moment to congratulate both the chairman, Senator Lieberman, and the ranking member, Senator Collins, for handling a very difficult bill. It is, in my view, the way we ought to legislate. We had a number of amendments that were important to our Members. We are glad they had an opportunity to offer them. I wanted to just take a moment to congratulate Senator Collins and Senator Lieberman for a very skillful job handling this very difficult piece of legislation.
