mr. speaker , i appreciate the gentleman yielding .  i believe the committee on the budget chairman , the gentleman from iowa ( mr. nussle )  , has had some informal discussions with his senate counterpart .  i have spoken to the majority leader of the senate .  they are hoping to call a conference committee meeting sometime next week , which means we will have to go to conference sometime next week .  as the gentleman may or may not know , the senate is taking a work period the following week , so they are trying as hard as they can to get this conference formed , a meeting , and work done so that we can have a conference report on the floor of the house and the senate by the end of next week .  