Press Conference following the Senate Republican Conference Retreat with Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN); Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ); Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-KY); Senator John Ensign (R-NV); and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX

Statement

Press Conference following the Senate Republican Conference Retreat with Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN); Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ); Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-KY); Senator John Ensign (R-NV); and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX)

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SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, good afternoon, everyone. Welcome back. I guess you've been here a while, but we just got back yesterday. We had a(n) annual retreat over at the Library Congress, which our Conference Chair Senator Alexander will describe shortly.

Let me just say that we think we had a very successful conclusion to the first session of the 110th Congress. It finally dawned on the majority that in order to accomplish something they needed to meet us in the middle, and if you look at December, where we finally got the appropriation bills finished and met the president's top line, were able to get the funding necessary, the $70 billion necessary for Iraq and Afghanistan without strings attached; passed an energy bill that didn't raise utility rates in the Southeast and didn't raise taxes; get AMT relief without raising taxes on other Americans.

We had a successful conclusion, and I hope the lesson learned by the majority is that's a good way to start the second session of the 110th. And I would cite on example as an indication that that may well be a lesson learned by them and one that we've been preaching for some time last year, and that is the spirit with which we begin the discussion of getting an economic growth package together to deal with an economy that has been clearly slowing by all indications. As you know, that package will begin in the House of Representatives. The secretary of the Treasury, Leader Boehner and the speaker, I and Senator Reid have all agreed that Paulson, Pelosi and Boehner need to work out something that will move in the House; and then Senator Reid and I will take a look at it over here, and the Senate will do its best to respond to the House-passed passage.

FISA. The six-month FISA extension passed last August with a significant number of Democrats and essentially all Republicans supporting it. So it passed on a bipartisan basis. Senator Reid has -- correctly, in my view -- turned to that issue today. The current extension will expire February 1st. There is no reason why we can't finish this job by February 1st and continue to protect the American people.

You all are familiar with the issues. Senator Kyl will talk about them in detail. But we think we ought to finish the FISA bill this week. I know that's the majority leader's view as well.

I don't think there should be a conference. We think we're going to pass the kind of bill the president could sign. I would hope the House would take up the Senate bill, pass it and get it down to the president for his signature prior to February uary 1st. We cannot allow a gap in coverage on the terrorist surveillance issue.

So with that, let me turn the podium over to Senator Alexander to talk about our conference.

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Q I understand that Secretary Paulson spoke to you today. Did he give an indication of how close they were to reaching an agreement on this stimulus package, and what we might see in this package?

SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, at the risk of being redundant, he did not specify the package, because the package is going to be negotiated, at least initially, among Secretary Paulson, the speaker and Leader Boehner. In other words, that's where it's going to start, and he responded to a lot of questions -- Lamar may remember all of them better than I -- about just various aspects of it, what might be helpful and what might not be helpful. Members had varying points of view.

What we're going to be doing here in the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, is responding to what comes over to us from the House. Under our system, as you know, it has to originate there anyway, and that will be the starting place.

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Q Senator Kyl, would you care to address that? You've been fairly outspoken on your sense of whether these rebate checks and some other things that have been publicly discussed would work. What do you think -- (off mike)?

SEN. KYL: I'm happy to say -- I was about to say to Lamar, "Great answer," because it's absolutely correct in the way he characterized what occurred. And I'm not going to use this podium to give you my personal views. We don't refer to what individual members say in these conferences. But there was a great deal of concern expressed. Everyone cares very deeply about their constituency and how the slowdown has impacted them, and is very concerned that we do whatever we can in the right way to ensure the very best result. And I think there's going to be a lot more conversation about that, and early opinions may evolve as time goes on.

SEN. MCCONNELL: Let me just mention two things with regard to that issue, that you've already heard, but I think there is widespread agreement on on a bipartisan basis. One is roughly the size of the package -- although some think it ought to be bigger -- the size of the package and doing it quickly enough to have an impact now. And I agree with the majority leader that we ought to act on this issue before the one-week break on February. So I think we agree on roughly the size and how soon we need to pass it.

Q Senators, you talked a lot about some of the goals that you think could get done in a bipartisan manner this year. Do you think there's going to be a big push before the Presidents Day weekend to get some legislation done? Beyond the big stuff like FISA and a stimulus package, are there other -- (off mike) -- that you'll be asking to deal with on the floor?

SEN. MCCONNELL: Well, I think almost everybody addressed this in one way or another. I think there's a widespread feeling now on both sides of the aisle, that developed in December, that, hey, we actually can pass things on a bipartisan basis; we can get bills signed.

And the way to do that is to minimize the political sparring and get about it. And that's what we did in December. I think we're going to demonstrate that shortly on FISA here in the Senate, and hopefully we'll demonstrate it again on some kind of growth package sometime in the next few weeks.

I sense a sort of different attitude. I mean, I think the new majority came to town -- came to power last January kind of feeling their oats. You know, we had 36 Iraq votes last year. The public's perception of all that was all we did was have Iraq votes and investigations. The approval rating of Congress tumbled. Some pollsters say it's the lowest in recorded polling history.

I think the message out of that, to both sides, is there are things that can be accomplished meeting in the middle and trying to do some things that we can agree on on a bipartisan basis. We tried that in December. It seemed to work. And hopefully we'll get off to that kind of start again this year and be looking for opportunities to make laws rather than looking for opportunities to score points. I think that approach would be good for the political health of both sides.

One more, if there is one.

Q Mr. Leader, I just wondered -- (off mike) -- about the need for some kind of cash component for the very lowest-income people, not just -- (off mike).

SEN. MCCONNELL: Yeah, I'm going to frustrate you by not answering that, because, you know, that's part of the negotiation that will be going on, at least initially, between Secretary Paulson, Leader Boehner and the speaker.

Thanks everybody.

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