[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 25]
[Senate]
[Page 33578]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             MOVING FORWARD

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, let me say I share the view of the 
majority leader that there is clearly a way forward on the farm bill. 
We are now making substantial progress and should be able to complete 
that bill in the near future.
  Also I think there is a way to get a Foreign Intelligence 
Surveillance Act measure out of the Senate that could be signed by the 
President.
  With regard to the remaining efforts here on the spending issues, it 
is, indeed, hard to understand the complaints we are hearing from the 
other side on our supposed lack of compromise on spending. We have 
sought actually compromises all year in dozens of appropriations 
committee and subcommittee hearings, which is the normal process. But 
we are now a quarter of the way into the fiscal year. Responsible 
people understand the time to get the work done is now. As the majority 
leader indicated, Christmas is 2 weeks from today. We can keep going 
back and forth with the House maybe endlessly. But that would only 
further delay our fundamental responsibility of getting these spending 
bills signed into law.
  So what is the way to do it? The way forward: Let's protect the 
taxpayers' wallets, fund the troops, and end this otherwise 
unproductive exercise.

                          ____________________