[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 19]
[Senate]
[Pages 26251-26252]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                  UNANIMOUS CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 3548

  Mr. REID. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that all 
postcloture time be yielded back--and we are talking about the 
unemployment extension bill--and the motion to proceed be agreed to; 
that once the bill is reported, the following be the only first-degree 
amendments in order to the bill; that debate time on the listed first-
degree amendments be limited to 60 minutes each, except the Baucus-Reid 
substitute, which would be debated within the time limits provided for 
the bill; that general debate on the bill be limited to 60 minutes, 
with that time equally divided and controlled between the leaders or 
their designees; Baucus-Reid substitute amendment, which contains 
unemployment insurance extension and net operating loss provisions, as 
well as the negotiated home buyer tax credit language; the Johanns 
amendment regarding an alternative substitute; that upon disposition of 
the amendments, the Baucus-Reid substitute amendment, if amended, be 
agreed to, the bill, as amended, be read the third time, and the Senate 
then proceed to vote on passage of the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. McCONNELL. Madam President, reserving the right to object, and I 
will object, this is the same subject we have been going back and forth 
on for days. I have pared back our request for amendments 
significantly, but we are still unable to get even a modest three 
amendments on this side of the aisle. Therefore, I object.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, we have more than a million people, as we 
speak, who have no unemployment insurance. These are the most desperate 
of the desperate. They have long since lost their jobs. If we can 
recognize that what would stimulate the economy is giving somebody who 
has been out of work a long time a check, and they will spend it--we 
have more than a million people wanting to spend that money, maybe to 
pay rent or make a car payment they are behind on to stop the car from 
being taken sometime in the middle of the night.
  We have agreed to a bipartisan amendment dealing with first-time home 
buyers that has been worked on by Johnny Isakson. It was his idea 
originally. We have Senator Bunning, who offered an amendment dealing 
with net operating loss. We have agreed to that. I would even be 
willing to modify my unanimous consent request and include the Corker-
Warner amendment regarding TARP trustees, another bipartisan amendment.
  The Republicans have dropped their request for having an amendment on 
E-Verify, which took several days to work out. I appreciate that. They 
have dropped their request to do another in the long line of amendments 
dealing with ACORN. But now they are hung up on a TARP amendment that 
would

[[Page 26252]]

basically sunset the program. This isn't the time to do that. This is 
just an effort to delay and divert attention from this most important 
issue.
  Even if that weren't the case, the House of Representatives--I spoke 
to Steny Hoyer at 3:30. I told him I would call him in the next half 
hour, 45 minutes. They will accept what we have talked about for first-
time home buyers and the work we have done with net operating loss, but 
they are not going to accept terminating TARP. That is basically what 
it is. It sunsets it. We know there is a time limit on it, anyway, 
statutorily. It seems to me there should be a better time to debate 
this, dealing with a multibillion-dollar program.
  So I hope my modification, which basically would add to it the 
alternative substitute by Senator Johanns and the Corker-Warner 
amendment regarding TARP, would be agreed to.
  I say to the distinguished Republican leader that we will not be able 
to accept the request to do the sunsetting of TARP tonight. I think it 
is unfortunate that we cannot approve what we agree upon. Today is 
Thursday. I have already explained to the distinguished Republican 
leader--and he understood it, anyway--that this would put it over until 
Monday, and then Monday sometime we would attempt to get cloture on the 
bill. We got it on the motion to proceed to it. That takes another 
couple of days. It is a difficult thing for people to have to wait a 
week. I hope there will be an agreement to allow us to move forward.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader is recognized.
  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.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard.
  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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