Press Conference with Sens. Mitch McConnell, Trent Lott, Jon Kyl, Kay Bailey Hutchison on Appropriations, SCHIP and Attorney General Nomination

Interview

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SEN. LOTT: Well, here we are, three weeks into a new fiscal year, and the Congress has not sent one appropriations bill to the president of the United States for the various government departments and agencies. And every one of the appropriations bills -- seven of them, I think, now that even come up to the Senate but have not been sent to the president -- exceeds the president's requests. And it's not just by small amounts. It may be 3 billion (dollars), 4 billion (dollars). The current bill pending before the Senate -- Labor, Health and Human Services -- is around $9 billion over what the president asked for in discretionary spending.

Now, working American families have to live within their means. They have to deal with a budget. They have to deal with the cost of education and fuel and health care. Congress needs to live within its budget and within its means, and we have not been doing that. And therefore we're coming down to the end of this session or the end of this year where everything is going to come together in what I presume will be a very bloated, large appropriations spending bill, which the president will probably have to veto to keep the spending area under control.

So I would urge, you know, the leadership -- the Democratic leadership -- to schedule these conferences, send these bills to the president and schedule other appropriations bills for the consideration of the Senate. We have the time. We could do it. But we apparently are not going to have many opportunities to even take up the remaining appropriations bills.

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Q Pardon me, Senators, NASA is reluctant to release information that it's taken on plane flights and pilot safety and things of that nature. Because they're afraid if they release it, the airline public will become frightened or something like that. What do you think of their response, and not releasing the information, and what should be done about it?

SEN. LOTT: Other than what I heard you talking about on the radio this morning, I don't know a lot about that. (Laughter.) I think we all would like to investigate it a little bit more.

(Cross talk.)

Q (Off mike.)

SEN. LOTT: A pay-for is Washington language for a tax increase. The Democrats are looking for a way to come up with a tax increase to pay for, you know, the one-year extension or two-year patch, whatever you want to call it, of the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was never intended to be going up on people who are being affected now by the Alternative Minimum Tax. So we should eliminate the AMT permanently, you know, instead of -- we're never going to get that revenue anyway. We're going to defer or delay of one year, two years. We ought to go ahead and be honest about it and eliminate this Alternative Minimum Tax fiasco every year. But we shouldn't be expected to raise taxes to pay for something that was never intended to produce these taxes. So we're having trouble working that out but we'll keep working.

(Cross talk.)

Q The Southwick vote: What is it going to be? And also, can you respond to the possibility of a quid pro quo with someone like Senator Nelson of the Democrats regarding spending bills, future spending bills?

SEN. LOTT: We do expect that sometime today, after the Labor/HHS appropriations bill is disposed of, that we would go to a specified period of time for discussion on the nomination of Judge Leslie Southwick to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.

My impression is -- and Senator Reid and Senator McConnell would have to make the final call -- that this would go over with some continued debate, maybe in the morning, with a vote hopefully sometime in the morning.

So I think it's the right thing to do. We need to move forward on these judicial nominations. This one has been pending -- the position has been open for years, but this nomination has been pending for some time. Senator Reid has -- I know the issues he's had to address, but he has indicated his intent to bring it up, and I'm pleased that he's going to do that. And I hope we have the votes to avoid a filibuster and then to move to a vote up or down on the nominee.

Q And what about the possibility of a deal with Senator Nelson -- (off mike)?

SEN. LOTT: I know nothing on that subject that I could report.

Thank you very much.

Q Senator, you said that Congress has to live within its means.

SEN. LOTT: Yeah.

Q Do you think the 196 billion (dollars) that the president seeks for war funding is within the means of Congress?

SEN. LOTT: This is for the war in Iraq. The indications are that violence and deaths are markedly down. So the surge has been working.

But I do think that Congress has an obligation to review the president's request very carefully and make sure that they get what they need, but they don't get more than they might need or, you know, before they need it.

But we're going to look at that very closely. I do think that making sure our men and women have what they need, the equipment they need, the supplies they need, what they need to do their job is of utmost importance to Americans. Every American will tell you real quick we -- you know, while our troops are there doing the job, we need to make sure they have what they need.

Q Is it living within the means, though, of Congress?

SEN. LOTT: Well, that's what we've got to find out. We're going to look at the numbers.

Q Okay. Thank you very much.

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