A Balanced Budget

Floor Speech

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Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on another matter, before Easter, the Senate passed a balanced budget. The House of Representatives did as well. The next step in the process is for each Chamber to appoint Members to a conference committee that can work out any differences between those bills, and then send unified legislation back to Congress for a final vote. We are taking that next step today.

Some of our friends across the aisle seem eager to use this opportunity to rehash some of the same votes we took in passing the budget. The outcome of those votes won't be different, so I am not sure what the point would be, other than to slow down the process for its own sake. So I would urge them to reconsider and decide if that is really what they want to do.

But either way--either way--the new Congress is determined to keep working to finalize the budget. After years of a Senate that often refused to even consider a budget, this is a big change. And it is another example of the new Congress that is back to regular order and back to work.

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