[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 8 (Wednesday, February 6, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Page S397]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            INABILITY TO ACT

  Mr. BENNETT. The Chamber seems to be filled with congratulatory 
messages. We are congratulating ourselves that we have finally acted, 
when, in fact, all we have done is the least possible, minimum, lowest 
common denominator kind of action, and we have demonstrated our 
inability to act on any kind of visionary plan.
  The majority leader says he will be happy to bring this subject up 
again if there is an indication that we can get something upon which we 
can agree. There is an indication that we can get something upon which 
we can agree, that we can get something that is a compromise, that we 
can get something that cuts across party lines. That is the proposal 
made by the Centrist Coalition.
  I have been a member of the Centrist Coalition, and its predecessor 
names of the group, ever since I came to the Senate in 1993. We started 
out holding meetings in Senator John Chafee's hideaway. John Chafee was 
the founder of this group. He said, let's reach across party lines and 
see if we can't put partisanship aside and come up with some kind of a 
solution. We have had our good moments. We have had our disappointing 
moments. But we have hung together as a group, even as the membership 
has changed in the years since I have been here.
  The Centrist Coalition, involving Democrats and Republicans, 
involving people of very strong positions on the liberal side of issues 
and very strong positions on the conservative side of issues, have 
said: For the good of the country, let's see if we can't fashion a 
package that makes sense. And the majority leader will not allow a vote 
on that package.
  He will not allow us even to debate it. He will not allow us to bring 
it up. He will not allow people who were not part of the Centrist 
Coalition to offer amendments. Then as he shuts the process down, he 
says: I am open to any suggestion from anybody. I will take him at his 
word, and I have a suggestion for him. I say to the majority leader, 
bring up the Centrist Coalition stimulus package backed by Republicans 
as well as Democrats. Put it on the floor and allow it to be amended by 
those who say it isn't wonderful; allow the normal parliamentary 
procedure to go forward; and then allow it to come to a vote.
  I suggest to you that if the majority leader really believes we need 
a stimulus package, if he is really true to his word that he is open to 
any suggestion, if he really does want to move in this direction, that 
is the way he should go. But he has not allowed that. He has not 
allowed a vote. Let us understand that.
  There is a proposal. It is not a series of rehashed tax ideas, as the 
Senator from Rhode Island suggested, about some of the things people on 
this aisle wanted to put in. It is something worked out by a group of 
Republicans and Democrats acting in good faith and in consultation with 
the White House--reaching out beyond the Congress to get the opinion of 
the President of the United States, and receiving from the President 
the comment that, well, it is not exactly what I want but I would be 
willing to sign it.
  It seems to me this is an extraordinary moment in cooperation, 
reaching out, and resolution that the majority leader will not allow to 
come up. This is an extraordinary opportunity which the majority leader 
will not allow to happen.
  I hope the majority leader reconsiders. I hope he recognizes that 
taking a strong partisan position on one side, or taking a strong 
partisan position on the other side, has been proven ineffective; that 
he recognizes that there are those of us who have spent time talking to 
each other across the aisle outside of the partisan straitjacket who 
have reached out in an effort to find a compromise that makes sense, 
who have crafted something that we think will pass and the President 
has indicated he will sign, and that this is available to the majority 
leader and to the country if the majority leader will simply allow it 
to come to a vote.
  Mr. President, as you and others know, my father served in this body 
for 24 years. My first experience here was sitting up in the family 
gallery as a teenager watching the Senate operate as I tried to 
understand it. My father said something that was very profound. When 
people would say to him, why didn't you do this or why didn't you do 
that, he would say: We legislate at the highest level at which we can 
obtain a majority.
  I think there is a majority for the centrist package. I ask the 
majority leader to let us find out.

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