Mike Enzi: “I am compelled every once in a while to come to the floor to let people know what is happening. I know there are people…”

“I am compelled every once in a while to come to the floor to let people know what is happening. I know there are people watching the work of the Senate, and I know those people do not have, for the most part, a program or a scorecard. It is pretty hard to follow the rules of what is going on around here without that. I make an attempt partly to explain to myself what is going on and take the opportunity to share it with other people who might be interested and might be listening. Right now, we are in the closing days of a race for the U.S. President. It does not really have a lot to do with this body; it has a lot to do with our interaction with the administrative branch. Sometimes it is easier for rhetoric to invade the Chambers and to appear to be the most important thing we are doing. What we ought to be doing is the appropriations bills for this Nation. We handle in excess of $1.8 trillion. That is how much we spend on behalf of the American public. We ought to be debating that. We are not. We cannot get unanimous consent to proceed to a debate on an appropriations bill. We cannot move forward to talk about the $1.8 trillion of appropriations for this country. Instead, we have debate on things that we have debated, things that have been decided, for the most part, and, on some occasions, with some finality. Instead, we have people in this Chamber who would rather rehash votes we have already taken and retake them again.”