Budget Conference

Floor Speech

Mr. LEE. Madam President, earlier today we were asked to give our consent to go to conference on the budget resolution. This is an important matter because we have now gone more than 4 years without a budget. This has been of great concern to many of us. I do not think there is one Member of this body who would not want Congress to pass a budget this year. We would like to see that happen. We need that.

We do, however, have a concern--some of us--with the request that we go to conference without certain assurances. Most important, we want a very simple assurance that any conference report that results from this conference will not be used to raise the debt limit. The reason for this is simple. This is an important matter. At a time when we have racked up about $17 trillion in debt, we want some assurances that this important decision will be made under the regular order of the Senate; that the normal rules of the Senate will apply; that this will not be negotiated behind closed doors in a backroom deal. The American people deserve more. They demand more.

Those who may have questioned our motives in connection with this, I ask them a very simple question: Will you give us an assurance that you are not going to use the conference report to raise the debt limit? If they can answer that question to our satisfaction, if they can simply give me an assurance that is not what they are going to use it for, then I will gladly give my consent. So I invite that to be the topic of discussion.

All this begs the question. Why would they not give that assurance? What on Earth is wrong with the regular order? What on Earth is wrong with giving an assurance that, in connection with a conference report on a budget resolution, they would not be willing to say: If we are going to raise the debt limit, we are going to do it under the regular order.

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