Patrick Leahy: “I was going to speak in a few minutes, but things have been filed now appropriately. Let me speak in my role not only as…”

“I was going to speak in a few minutes, but things have been filed now appropriately. Let me speak in my role not only as the Senator from Vermont but as the vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. We have had months of delay and painstaking negotiations. Sometimes those negotiations have gone all weekend long, until midnight, 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning. But this afternoon, we will have before us a spending package. It includes all 12 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2021. It also includes a vitally important COVID relief package. Those are the numbers and figures, but let's talk about what it means. It provides funding for programs that are critically important to the American people, and I would like to see it swiftly passed and on the President's desk. After all, it is not like we are suddenly rushing things. We are 2 months and 20 days into the fiscal year. It would be absolutely outrageous if we delayed it further. As vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I worked hard to reach agreement on this Omnibus appropriations bill that will fund the Federal government through the remainder of the fiscal year, without relying on a long-term continuing resolution, as sometimes has been done in the past. That was not an easy task. The budget caps are very lean this year, and we had to stay within those.…”