Change of Vote

Floor Speech

CHANGE OF VOTE -- (Senate - October 16, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, we are 16 days into the fiscal year, and Congress has yet to enact a single appropriations bill.

This bill, should it pass, will never get signed into law.

It is time to start taking our obligations to the taxpayers seriously. I believe that we can do so in a fiscally responsible way.

The bill, when reported, increased spending by 8.1 percent over last year's bill, and it has only grown since it has been on the floor. When we finish this bill we will have increased spending by nearly 10 percent--a double digit increase--at a time when the CPI went up only by about 2 percent.

The American people demand that Congress get serious about restraining spending. We can pass the buck--and fund government through multiple continuing resolutions--or we can make the choices necessary to responsibly legislate.

Senator Lott and I propose to send this bill back to committee and instruct them to prioritize spending in a way that is both responsible to the taxpayer and will secure a Presidential signature. We will move to commit H.R. 3093 to the Committee on Appropriations with instructions to report back with total amounts not to exceed $51.238 billion. I urge my colleagues to vote for fiscal responsibility and to support the motion.

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