Budget Blame: Frist and Foremost

There were lots of kind words last week for departing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn. But Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., the soon-to-be former chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, couldn't get resist getting in a last-minute dig at his fellow GOPer, the New York Times reports. Speaking after Congress failed yet again to pass most fiscal 2007 spending bills, Lewis said: “The breakdown of regular order this cycle -- indeed the failure to get our bills done -- should be squarely placed at the feet of the departing Senate majority leader who failed to schedule floor time for the consideration of appropriations bills.”