[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 98 (Tuesday, July 21, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Page S8635]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          APPROPRIATIONS BILLS

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, the last couple of weeks we have all 
been on the floor trying to get appropriations bills completed. I would 
just like to submit to the U.S. Senate that we ought not be doing this 
every year.
  Don't we have enough knowledge and wisdom and information to 
appropriate every 2 years instead of every year? Don't we have enough 
information about budgets and estimating that we could do a budget that 
lasted for 2 years and make automatic economic adjustments? Of course 
we do.
  Mr. President, if the authorizing committees are wondering why they 
do not have a chance to do things around here, this is one reason. 
Because we hardly have enough time to do the appropriations bills. 
Because they are up every year as if we were in constant motion. In 
fact, I defy even Senators with the best recollection to recall one 
appropriations bill from another year by year. They are so often that 
they are all one big glob of votes.
  Frankly, the Senator from New Mexico had made a mistake this year, 
because there is a bill at the desk saying we ought to do this every 2 
years. We would get our job done better and we would have oversight 
time and the Senate would be a better place to work in and could do its 
business better. I should have started 4 months ago insisting that that 
bill for 2-year budgets and 2-year appropriations be voted on by the 
U.S. Senate.
  But I can tell the Senate, it will be voted on the next opportunity 
when our leader has some time, and it may be early next year. We are 
going to get that bill out of committee, and we are going to vote on 
this issue of whether we have to do this every single year.
  Frankly, we now have evidence that these bills are 90 to 95 percent 
similar one year over another. I know chairmen feel they have made 
dramatic changes year over year; and, yes, they may have. They also 
passed the appropriated money for bills that have not been authorized, 
and they know that. And their response is, ``Nobody's doing it, so we 
have to do it.'' Well, nobody is doing it because there is no time for 
anybody to do it.
  Mr. President, I believe many Senators agree with this. I have talked 
to them at length on it. Frankly, we are going to decide in the Senate 
pretty soon whether we are going to keep on doing this. I am not sure 
we will win, but surely we are going to present this issue.
  I thank the Chair and yield the floor.

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