[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 22990-22991]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           ORDER OF PROCEDURE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the House is going to vote in the next half 
hour on the recovery plan. We are going to attempt this afternoon to 
get a consent agreement to move so that we will have a 60-vote margin 
to approve this legislation. We would do that sometime on Wednesday, 
late in the day.
  In the meantime, we are working to see if we can complete an 
agreement to move and complete the Indian nuclear treaty, also on the 
same day. That would be Wednesday. I think we are very close to being 
able to work that out. That would allow all afternoon today, all day on 
Tuesday, and Wednesday to work on those two items.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the majority leader yield for a question?
  Mr. REID. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I want to make sure I heard correctly, and my 
colleagues understand, that we would address the rescue package with a 
vote Wednesday night? A Wednesday night vote on the rescue package, is 
that what I heard?
  Mr. REID. Yes. We have to make sure it passes the House. I am 
confident that will be the case. Yes, we will work to see if we can get 
agreement, both the majority and minority, to have a vote on that 
sometime Wednesday.
  I also say I know there is a lot of anxiety, people wanting us to 
complete this this afternoon. We pushed things a lot, to a 12:30 vote. 
Many people wanted a much earlier vote. The holiday starts sundown 
today which, as I understand it, is around 6 o'clock, quarter to 6, 
maybe even earlier than that. People have to go home so they can 
prepare for the holiday.
  I know people have said let's go ahead and do this anyway. We cannot 
do that. This is an important piece of legislation. It would be 
legislative malpractice for us not to talk about it before we vote on 
it. I am confident everyone understands that.
  The one thing I didn't mention is we are going to have to have a 
final passage vote on the matter on which cloture was just invoked. We 
will also do that on Wednesday. We should be able to complete--if 
things go well, we should complete all of our work Wednesday. The House 
is leaving today, so that fairly well limits what we can do. But if 
anyone has any questions, I will be happy to acknowledge them. We are 
having a caucus at 1:30 so we can talk to Democrats about this recovery 
program.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the majority leader yield further?
  Mr. REID. I am happy to.
  Mr. McCONNELL. It is the majority leader's feeling there simply would 
be no way to address the rescue package this afternoon before sundown?
  Mr. REID. That is right. I do say this will, of course--I could be 
wrong, but I am very confident there are enough votes to pass this 
legislation. There will be 60 votes to pass this recovery plan once we 
get it from the House. That should be in the next several hours. That 
will give people all the time that they need to talk about it. I do not 
want to be jammed in that regard. But there is no way we could do it. 
It is just not fair. This is the Senate where people are supposed to be 
able to talk. We just can't start voting on something that is costing 
the country up to $700 billion without at least advising our 
constituents why we are voting for or against something of this 
importance.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I don't want to get into a big debate with the leader 
about this, but the House of Representatives, of course, is voting 
today, and they have not had the package any longer than we would have 
had it today. I know all of this is complicated by the holiday that is 
beginning at sundown. But this is a matter of extraordinary importance. 
Both sides realize it is important to the financial future of our 
country. I did at least want to raise the possibility one more time 
that maybe there would be some way we can vote on it today.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the House has had--has been debating this 
since 8 this morning. That is 5 hours. I just think it is inappropriate 
for us to have that matter--we will not even get the bill for another 
couple of hours. I think it is inappropriate for us to charge into this 
without having had the opportunity to work on it. If it passes the 
House, I have already said publicly I am confident there are enough 
votes to pass it in the Senate. I have no doubt that is true.
  Everyone should just calm down. I know this is a mad rush, but we 
make mistakes by rushing into things. There is nothing wrong with our 
talking about this until Wednesday. That is the day after tomorrow. I 
think the anxiety of the chairman of the committee who has worked so 
hard on this--I know he would like to get this done so he can go home 
and spend some time with his little girls. But I think discretion is 
the better part of valor. I don't think it is appropriate, and I don't 
think we could do it if we wanted to. We have people who are gone 
because of the holiday. They are gone right now. It is not fair to 
them. I do not think it is fair to the body generally that we rush into 
this, with Senators being gone. There is no question the holiday has 
been announced for more than a year. For some people this is a very 
important time of the year for them for their religious observance, and 
I am not going to tell Senators who are already not here because of 
this that they are going to miss this most important vote.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. Leader, I am not on the committee so I am not here 
with any rush from having written this or having spent time there. I 
just want to share with you my concerns.
  I believe we are in a time situation that is of utmost importance. I 
believe the next 2 days could see many bad things happen that will be 
very harmful and irreversible for millions of people. The banking 
system and banks, financial institutions in the world during the next 3 
days, even though they believe you, that we are going to pass this 
legislation--things can really happen to those that would not happen if 
we passed this legislation now. I just want to say I understand 
religious holidays and I understand the significance of the one you are 
speaking of. But I also believe--I think I understand what is happening 
out there and what is happening in the world, and 24 hours is enough 
time for many things to happen; 48 is too long.
  Many things will happen which are detrimental and harmful. I urge you 
once again to repeat that you think we are going to pass this. I think 
it is important that we instill some confidence that we are going to 
get a right decision; that the delay is just an interim delay because 
it is unavoidable, at least you feel that way as leader of the Senate, 
but that we are going to pass it. If the world doesn't believe that,

[[Page 22991]]

once the House passes it, a lot of our work will go for naught and a 
lot of things will happen that are not good. I am sure of that.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, we have both Presidential candidates 
finally agree on one thing--we should pass this. Both agree. There are 
the two leaders, Senator McConnell and I have done what we can to 
advance this program. I have no doubt that it will pass the Senate. We 
will wait to see what happens in the House, but I have no doubt it will 
pass the Senate.
  Mr. LEAHY. Will the majority leader yield for a point?
  Mr. REID. I am happy to.
  Mr. LEAHY. I have seen the vote count. I know it will pass the 
Senate. But I urge Senators, let's not be stampeded into things without 
even reading it. Here is a report from the Department of Justice's 
Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility about the 
investigation into the firing of the U.S. attorneys, one of the 
greatest scandals to hit the Department. This came about because we 
rushed through on a piece of legislation at the last minute. The 
Administration slipped in a provision that was on the basis of the 
administration saying: Trust us--and they manipulated it. People 
eventually may go to jail because of this. Millions of dollars of 
investigations are going on because of this.
  Keep in mind, 10 days ago we were asked to pass something immediately 
because of the urgency--they told us the world is falling, the sky is 
falling. That proposal said we would give the Secretary of the Treasury 
carte blanche to do anything he wants. That proposal said his decisions 
could not be reviewed by any court, any person, any administrative 
body, and they insisted that is the only thing--the only thing--the 
administration could accept.
  After it was pointed out by myself and others that meant he could 
actually write himself a check for $700 billion and nobody could ask 
about it, when a number of those things came about, they suddenly 
realized they could make changes. We sat in a meeting, all the 
Senators, with the Secretary of the Treasury and Chairman Bernanke, the 
head of the Federal Reserve. I remember asking a question, a simple 
question. They went around and around and never answered it. Two days 
later they finally answered it.
  Let's take time to read what we are voting on for the sake of this 
country, realizing what happened before when we were stampeded into 
voting for something because the sky was falling.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Will the majority leader yield for a question?
  Mr. REID. I am happy to yield.
  Mr. SALAZAR. I say to the majority leader, only 10 days ago we were 
asked to give a $700 billion blank check to the Secretary of the 
Treasury because the sky was falling. I think the majority leader, 
working in a bipartisan way, did the right thing in terms of standing 
up against that stampede that was being brought upon us by the White 
House. Because of the process that has been underway in a bipartisan 
way, the blank check is no longer there. There are constraints on this 
legislation that make it better. But to have the judgment of the 
Senate, to have us rush to judgment on a $700 billion rescue package, 
would be an absolute mistake. I think the majority leader is correct in 
terms of wanting us to take the time to review this legislation, which 
none of us have yet seen, to review it through Tuesday, let the Jewish 
holiday pass, and then come back and take the appropriate steps so we 
make sure the sound judgment of the Senate is being brought on this 
legislation.
  I am very much in agreement with the majority leader that we should 
take our time to get it done right.
  Mr. REID. Through the Chair to my friend and all Senators, I have 
indicated what we have left on our plate to do. I hope we can complete 
that by Wednesday.
  There are other things that could come up that may extend the time. 
We may not be able to finish things on Wednesday. There are things the 
House is sending over to us today, or not sending to us today, that we 
may have to act on. I am going to do my very best, working with the 
Republican leader, to get us out of here on Wednesday, but that is no 
guarantee. I am going to do the very best we can, but there may be 
other things that come up that we are forced to work on. Even though 
the House is gone, certain things they have done, if we decide we have 
the opportunity to do those, we may have to do some of those things.
  I want everyone to know we will do our very best to get out of here 
sometime Wednesday night, but there is no guarantee on that, so I 
wouldn't make plans on Thursday to go golfing or anything like that.

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