Mike Enzi: “We have 4 months. One month we will be gone for recess. That leaves 12 weeks. We have 13 appropriations bills. We seldom…”

“We have 4 months. One month we will be gone for recess. That leaves 12 weeks. We have 13 appropriations bills. We seldom pass more than one appropriations bill a week. I can tell you that if we start doing sense-of-the-Senate resolutions on appropriations bills, we will not be able to get them finished in a week. What does that do? That puts the process that the Constitution says is ours, the Congress of the United States, in the hands of the President. I have to admit that were I the President, I might want that to happen, and that is why the other side delays and delays and delays with things such as sense-of-the-Senate resolutions. Last year, we put rule XVI back into effect. We said we are not going to legislate on appropriations bills. That was a major move for this country. We said there will be no legislation on bills. Now what we are talking about as the point of this whole debate is whether we are going to have sense-of-the-Senate resolutions back door. Why is that important? We said no real legislation. Now are we going to allow any kind of a debate we want on any kind of a topic with a sense-of-the-Senate resolution? A sense-of-the-Senate resolution says it is kind of our opinion, and it would make us feel good to pass it, and perhaps with all of the publicity we can persuade America that we are right. Well, America sees through that. America knows whether we are really doing our work or whether we are trying to make people feel good. We don't know that yet.…”