Lloyd Bentsen: “it is really kind of a joke that we are here at 12:30 in the morning Eastern time debating this. We heard about families…”

“it is really kind of a joke that we are here at 12:30 in the morning Eastern time debating this. We heard about families sitting around the dining room table and what they could end up cutting. None of the traditional families in my district in Texas, I believe, are sitting around the dining room table at this time, and I doubt they are in Columbus, Ohio either, but I do not know a lot about Columbus. And if this is the best my colleague can do, he probably ought to try and keep the job he has got. But, Mr. Chairman, this is not a blueprint for the Nation's fiscal policy. This is a testament to the continuing inability of the Republicans to govern the House. The truth be known, the budget process has already been hijacked by the Committee on Appropriations and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Last week, 2 weeks ago, we were racing to get out of here so we could pass a highway bill that everybody could pave up their State, that busted the budget by $22 billion. We forgot all about the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Democrats and Republicans were in a real big hurry to spend as much money as possible. We gutted the veterans' program by somewhere between $11 billion to $17 billion, depending on what committee and whose numbers are used, and then we found out that it was not done properly. So we race back in here quietly on Tuesday, and when no one was looking we passed by voice vote a correction of that.”