[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 188 (Monday, December 10, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Page S15040]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           SPENDING RESTRAINT

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I do not see the majority leader on the 
floor at the moment. I know we are not having morning business and are 
going straight to the farm bill, which I applaud. But I do wish to use 
a few minutes of my leader time at the outset of today's session.
  Mr. President, the majority in the House of Representatives will soon 
propose a half-trillion-dollar spending bill. They have left it to the 
Senate to make sure the bill includes troop funding. We have another 
responsibility to keep in mind as we wait for the House to act, and 
that is our responsibility to the taxpayers.
  Nearly a quarter of the way into the fiscal year, we are still 11 
appropriations bills short. That is out of a total of 12. Eleven out of 
12 have not yet been signed into law. We need to act on these and to do 
so in a fiscally responsible way that ensures they actually become law.
  As I have said, and as we have all seen, there is a way to make law 
and there is a way to make a political statement. On these 
appropriations bills, the middle-class tax hike known as the AMT, the 
farm bill, the Energy bill, and FISA, there is a way we can get all of 
these done, and we know what that way is. The path forward is clear. 
The question now is whether the majority will take it.

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