Kay Bailey Hutchison: “it would be in everyone's interest, once our Senators are notified, if we could set that time so our time could be…”

“it would be in everyone's interest, once our Senators are notified, if we could set that time so our time could be roughly equally divided before then. With that, Madam President, I will speak on our time and talk about the importance of passing the omnibus bill. This is a bill that encompasses many departments in our processes in the Senate. Normally, we try to pass each department separately so we can deal with those issues separately. Because of various circumstances, we now have a bill that takes in several major departments. Therefore, there are things that have not been debated separately. I know there are concerns that have been raised. However, we must pass this bill if we are going to have the will of today's Congress take effect for the appropriations between now and October 1 of this year. If we do not pass this bill--the alternative is a continuing resolution--it means that last year's priorities would prevail, and there would be some major losses in funding for the next 9 months of this year. Let's take, for instance, the veterans. Today we would lose, by not passing this bill, the ability to fully serve our veterans in their health care.”