Making the Senate Work

Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Arkansas and my good friend from Tennessee for initiating this effort. Again, as a relatively new Senator--in fact, I jumped the line. I apologize. As the Presiding Officer would support, it is only in the interest of family values; if I were not getting to my wife's birthday in about 30 minutes, I would be able to give more extended remarks.

As a Senator who has only had the opportunity to serve in this body for 3 years, I hear my more senior colleagues talk about the old days or the days when the Senate took up in an orderly fashion the business of the people and debated it in vigorous fashion but came to conclusion on issues that confronted the country. We have done some of that in the years when I came in with the Presiding Officer. There were issues of major importance that we have debated. But too often in recent times, we have not had the favor of those kinds of debates.

While we can disagree about many of the grave issues of the day, as a former businessperson, I know there is nothing more important than to give predictability to the enterprise we call the Federal Government. The way we do that is by passing spending bills--the appropriations bills--where hard choices are made about which programs to fund, which programs not to fund.

Like my friend the Senator from Tennessee and both Senators from Arkansas and the Presiding Officer, I have enormous concerns about our debt and deficit. We are going to have to make hard choices. But if we are going to make those choices, we need a full and vigorous debate, a debate where amendments are offered, where procedural tactics are not used to slow that debate, and where the will of the Senate is enacted.

I understand that the majority leader and the Republican leader have reached some accommodation to try to start a new way of business, and the first step of that business should be having us, in a fair and orderly process, debate appropriations bills, make those hard choices, and move on.

I again thank my colleagues for their courtesy but particularly thank the Senator from Tennessee and the senior Senator from Arkansas for bringing us together on the floor to lend our voices. This might even be like a volunteer fire department where Members of the Senate can rush down on an issue of importance. I heard the call that there were Senators down here talking on this important issue, and I am glad to add my voice to it.

I yield the floor.

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