Senator: Congress Squanders Week For Political Points [AUDIO]

Wyoming's ranking senator admonished the Obama administration and Senate Democrats for wasting time on political points in a speech on the Senate floor Monday. According to a release from his office, U.S. Sen. Mike Enzi criticized the deal-or-no-deal attitude and pointed to last week as an opportunity lost to address the nation's financial crisis.

Politics trump progress:

"What do we have to show for it? We had one vote cancelled on the Libya resolution, a substitute vote on whether the sergeant at arms could compel attendance, which was a non-budget related matter, and we had one legislative vote on Sen. Reid’s resolution about tax increases. This resolution is a sense of the Senate, which is not something that can become law. At this juncture more than ever, we don’t need publicity pieces."

Sen. Enzi gave examples of the sort of progress that could've been made.

What could've been accomplished:

"What we could have done is move forward with the balanced budget amendment that all 47 Republicans have cosponsored. Or, we could have voted on my legislation to reduce spending by one percent each year until we achieve a balanced budget. Or, we could have voted on legislation that other Republicans have offered that would cap spending. Or, we could have voted on legislation offered by Republicans to ensure we pay our creditors in the event that we cannot reach agreement on the debt ceiling. Unfortunately, we didn’t do any of that."