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Floor Speech

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Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, two points--a short one and a long one. The short one is simply this: to remind my colleagues that at the beginning of the year, we get a Senate calendar that says what days we are going to be in session and what days we are not going to be in session.

Between now and the end of the fiscal year, September 30, we have 16 Fridays that we are supposed to be in session. Will we be in session on those Fridays? We have had a few Friday sessions this year so far, but I am afraid that if we don't count on being a little more devoted to a 5-day workweek, those Fridays will slip away from us.

I bring that to our attention because we are always complaining because we don't have enough time to do appropriations bills. These extra 16 days that we might not be in session would be a good amount of time to take care of the 12 appropriations bills that we have to do regularly.

I always say there is enough work for a Senator, an individual Senator, to do 7 days a week if he wants to work. But you can't solve this country's problems if you are only in session 2\1/2\ or 3 days a week. That was the practice of the U.S. Senate before the Republicans took over. Republicans are supposed to make a difference, and I think a big difference we can make in the U.S. Senate is showing that we are running the U.S. Senate in a businesslike way, and that is to get more work done and in particular do our separate appropriations bills instead of doing one great big thousand-page appropriations bill just before government is ready to shut down.

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