[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 63 (Tuesday, May 7, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3138-S3139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                               THE BUDGET

  Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I would like to speak for a few 
minutes

[[Page S3139]]

today about the importance of getting a budget done today, all the way 
through the process. Senator Reid, our majority leader, last evening 
spoke again about the fact that we have had 15 days now of trying to 
just come together to create a conference committee to work out 
differences between the House and the Senate on a budget. For some 
reason, after talk for the last 3 years that I can remember from 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle saying that we need regular 
order, we need regular order, we need to get a budget done, they now 
are objecting to getting a budget done, which is extraordinary. The 
fact is that we cannot get a budget done if the House and the Senate do 
not appoint conferees and sit down and negotiate differences.
  There are huge differences, I might add, between the House and the 
Senate. It is true that we will not accept, in the Senate, eliminating 
Medicare as an insurance plan for seniors and the disabled in this 
country, which the House does in their plan, turning it into a 
government voucher, putting seniors back into the private sector to try 
to find insurance. We certainly will not accept that, it is true. There 
are other areas of that budget we absolutely will not accept, but we 
know the first step in coming together to find something we can accept 
is to sit down and talk. I mean, I am very proud of what we were able 
to do in March. We had 110 amendments. We all remember. We were here 
until the wee hours of the morning. We got a budget done in regular 
order.
  We have been hearing from colleagues across the aisle that we need to 
have regular order. I support that. In fact, I was proud of the fact 
that last year we did a farm bill in regular order and plowed through 
73 amendments and worked together and passed a bipartisan bill. We hope 
we are going to be bringing a bill to the floor very soon as well to do 
it again.
  I am a huge supporter of giving people an opportunity to state their 
differences, to be able to work out amendments, and to be able to get a 
bill done. We did that with 50 hours of debate on the budget, 110 
amendments that we took up. We got it done. Now, all of a sudden, 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle do not want regular order 
anymore. They have decided somehow that actively blocking us from 
actually getting a budget for the Nation is more advantageous to them 
for some reason or something that appeals to them more than actually 
getting the budget done.
  I urge our colleagues on the other side of the aisle to take another 
look at this, to look at their own words over the last number of years. 
Our colleague from Texas who objected to the majority leader's motion 
to actually do the next step and get a budget done said back in January 
on national television: We have a crisis. Well, what was the crisis he 
was talking about?

       There is no doubt the Senate has not done its job. The 
     Senate should pass a budget.

  Well, we did. We passed a budget. It may not be something my 
colleague from Texas supported. That is the democratic process. The 
majority of people agreed in this body, and we passed a budget. He may 
be more inclined to support the House budget, which eliminates Medicare 
as an insurance plan and does a number of other things that I think go 
right to the heart of middle-class families and so on. That is his 
right. That is a right we all have, to have a position as to which 
budget we support. But we also know that in the democratic process 
under our Constitution--and we all talk about the Constitution and the 
democratic process--the way we actually get to a final budget is to get 
folks in a room to talk, to negotiate, and to see if there is some way 
to work issues out. We are now being blocked from being able to get in 
the room to talk to each other.
  The American people want us to talk, want us to negotiate, want us to 
work things out. That is what we ought to be doing. So I would strongly 
urge that we move to conference. I do not know why in the world anyone 
would be objecting to putting together a group of people, Democrats and 
Republicans in the Senate, Democrats and Republicans in the House, to 
sit down and work out the priorities for our country.
  Will we have different perspectives on Medicare, whether we should 
have Medicare? Yes, we will. Will we have different perspectives on 
where the brunt of the cutbacks should be and whether middle-class 
families have been hit enough, which I believe they have? Yes, we will 
have a disagreement on how to balance the budget. But we all know that 
we need to get the job done. We have done our part in passing a Senate 
budget. The House passed a House budget. It is a very different vision 
of the world, different vision of what should happen in terms of 
innovation, education, and investing in the future of our country--very 
different views. But those views deserve to be aired sitting around a 
conference table to try to work out some way to come together to pass a 
budget.
  I urge colleagues to stop obstructing, stop stalling, allow us to 
move forward in a balanced way, and give us the opportunity to do what 
everyone in the country wants us to do, which is to come up with a 
bipartisan, balanced, fair budget for the country.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum 
call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that I speak in 
morning business, followed by the Senator from New Hampshire, Ms. 
Ayotte.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mrs. Murray and Ms. Ayotte pertaining to the 
introduction of S. 871 are located in today's Record under ``Statements 
on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

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