On the recordApril 7, 2011
we have been talking for a long time today about this fiscal crisis. I don't think anyone is looking at the looming deadline tomorrow night as something that we want, to have government shut down. I hope so much that the President and Speaker Boehner and the Democratic leader of the Senate, Mr. Reid, can come to terms because we are so close to having an agreement on a continuing resolution until the end of this fiscal year--which is what we need. If anyone would run a business the way this government is being run, in 2- week continuing resolutions and 1-week and 3-week--it is not a way to run anything. It is not organized and you cannot plan. Certainly, we know taxpayer dollars are not being the most efficiently spent if we are going in 1- and 2-week increments. The stakes are very high. I look back at the year 2000, and we had balanced budgets. We had a balanced budget in the year 2000. We had a balanced budget up until 9/11. That was only 10 years ago, and we ought to be able, as the U.S. Congress, working with the President, to say if we had a balanced budget 10 years ago, we cannot possibly be so far over the line that we cannot bring it back into balance. But to bring it back into balance we are going to have to look long term. We cannot do it on $30 billion of difference from now to the end of the fiscal year's spending. The fiscal year ends October 1. We cannot do it.…
