Unanimous Consent Request - H.R. 3548

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, I believe the majority leader propounded another consent agreement. Reserving the right to object, let me briefly recount for colleagues where we have been on this issue over the last days.

We initially offered a modest number of amendments--eight. Five of my Members have been willing to discontinue their request for votes on their amendments. The majority leader just indicated he is willing to have one TARP amendment. We have one more TARP amendment. That would make for a total of three amendments. We could enter into a consent agreement to have votes on these three amendments, with short time agreements, and be through with this bill this afternoon.

I hope this is not the way the majority leader is planning on handling the health care debate because the American people will storm the Capitol if they think the majority is going to dictate to the minority what amendments will be offered on a bill as significant as restructuring one-sixth of the economy.

I feel as if we have been extraordinarily reasonable. We are down to three simple amendments on which we would be willing to accept time agreements to complete this unemployment insurance compensation bill. I don't think that is unreasonable. Therefore, Madam President, I object.

Mr. REID. Madam President, I guess reasonableness is in the eye of the beholder. Try to explain to someone who has been out of work for 8 months that their ability to get a check to pay the rent before they are evicted is going to be held up because this program, which is--I think the original TARP was $700 billion, as I recall, after meeting with the Secretary of the Treasury, who first came up with the idea. The program has been moving along, and there may be some reason to modify the program, and there should be debate on that. I have no problem doing that. But we should not hold this up. Every amendment we have talked about here has been bipartisan in nature. The Isakson amendment is bipartisan, the Bunning amendment is bipartisan, and the Corker amendment is bipartisan. I cannot imagine why we would hold this up.

My friend the distinguished Republican leader said they are not going to approve this, and I think that is too bad for the nameless people out there--I can see them in my mind's eye being desperate for help.

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, just to make sure there is no misunderstanding with the consent agreement I am willing to agree to, with votes on three amendments, with short time agreements, we could be finished with the unemployment compensation bill this very afternoon. This is not an effort to delay. If my friend is concerned about the amendment, he has 60 votes on his side; he could simply vote it down. That is an easy solution to the problem--to enter into the consent agreement, have short time agreements, and if my friend from Nevada opposes them, I am sure he can convince 60 Democrats to vote them down.

Mr. REID. Madam President, since we started this some 3 weeks ago, about 150,000 people have been added to the list of people who are eligible for what we are trying to do--150,000 people. Now there are well over a million people waiting to get this relief.

I have said that this matter will not be approved by the House. The House is going to move to health care next week. I received a call from Leader Hoyer. He wants this matter to come over there with what we have agreed upon.

This is another effort to delay what we are doing. This is not a question of flexing muscles--who has 60 votes and who has 40 votes. It is a question of moving forward with legislation now, not next week, to help people in America.

Remember, since we started this--trying to get a simple extension of unemployment benefits, which is paid for, and it is not deficit spending--we have agreed to do what has been suggested by the Republicans. First-time home buyers, we agreed to that; net operating loss, we will agree to that; we will agree to what Senator Corker wants, which is trustees appointed for TARP.

This is soon to be the fourth week of trying to simply get something done. The Republicans have been saying no, no, no to everything we do--``the party of no'' is pretty well described. We have had 87 noes so far this year in the form of 56 filibusters, plus trying to move the bills some 30 more times. So you can talk all you want about it. We should have been through with this 3 weeks ago.

Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, the way to finish this right now is to enter into a consent agreement to have votes on three amendments, with very short time agreements, and we can solve this issue. If my friend is worried about whether the House will accept it, he can vote it down, defeat the amendment. Around here, if you get the most votes, you win; if you don't, you lose. All I am suggesting is that we have three amendment votes, with short time agreements, this afternoon, and we can wrap up this bill.

I yield the floor.

Mr. REID. Madam President, this bill should have been wrapped up 3 weeks ago. It is always something. There is always a little something more to do, until time goes on and on. It is obvious that my friends don't care about these people who are desperate for money. I care about them. We care about them.

Madam President, would the Chair announce the next order of business. Under the provisions of the consent agreement the Republican leader and I agreed to, what is the matter before the Senate--or will be shortly?

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