[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Page 22929]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                          FACING THE DEADLINE

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, we are facing a deadline this week--
October 1. Every family in America knows about deadlines: April 15, you 
had better get your taxes in. A deadline is coming for shopping for 
Christmas, for Hanukkah. We are faced with many deadlines. October 1 is 
another deadline; that is our fiscal year. If Congress does nothing 
else during the course of a session, we are supposed to pass spending 
bills so when the fiscal year starts, the agencies know how much money 
they have and can go about the business of conducting their affairs and 
managing the Government.
  Now, I will have to be honest with you; in the 17 years I have been 
on Capitol Hill, in the House and Senate, rarely, if ever, has any 
party in control of the Senate or the House really met that deadline, 
had everything in place by October 1. Sometimes it takes a little extra 
time to put it together. But I would have to tell you that in my 
experience on the Hill, I can never recall a time when we reached 
October 1, as we will this week, with such chaos. There appears to be 
no plan in place, no conversation between the leaders on Capitol Hill 
and the White House, and we will be asked today to vote on what is 
called a continuing resolution; that is, an extension of about 3 weeks 
so we can continue the business of Government while the leaders of the 
House and Senate get down to the business of leading. I hope that 
happens because, frankly, to date, we have seen precious little 
leadership when it comes to the important issues facing our country.
  I am going to yield the floor at this point to my colleague from the 
State of Washington, Mrs. Murray, who is a member of the Labor-HHS 
appropriations subcommittee, a very important subcommittee when it 
comes to spending money for education. She comes to the Senate floor 
speaking not only as a Senator from Washington but as a former 
classroom teacher. So her perspective on education and what we are 
doing to either meet our obligations or fail to meet them is especially 
important.
  At this point, I reserve the remainder of my time and yield to the 
Senator from Washington.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Washington is recognized.
  Mrs. MURRAY. I thank the Chair and my colleague from Illinois for 
defining for us what our challenge is in this week as we reach the 
October 1 deadline and our commitment to make sure the budget is 
enacted and appropriations bills are passed. Clearly, we are going to 
be unable to do that.

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