[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Page 18549]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              FISCAL CLIFF

  Mr. WHITEHOUSE. Mr. President, I will speak off the topic of the day. 
Obviously, we are focused on the fiscal cliff. The measure is now over 
in the House, and the distinguished Senator from Wyoming and the senior 
Senator from California expressed their hope--and I would say 
confidence--that the House will act. Given the dysfunction of the House 
and its Republican leadership, I am perhaps a little bit more cautious 
than they are about this.
  I remember that we did a very good bipartisan highway bill here. It 
passed with an enormous vote of 70-some, if I remember correctly, and 
went over to the House. They could not even pass a highway bill. They 
had no bill at all. They got so snarled up that finally they passed a 
bill that did nothing but to appoint conferees to argue about our bill. 
They could not bring a bill of their own into conference.
  We worked very hard on a farm bill here. It was a bipartisan farm 
bill. Senator Stabenow was particularly energetic in that, as was her 
colleague from Kansas. Again, that was a bipartisan bill, which 
required a lot of hard work and had many compromises. We are in a 
terrible drought--which is something I will talk about more in a 
moment--and they cannot pass the farm bill over there.
  The Speaker tried to respond to having withdrawn from his 
negotiations with the President on the fiscal cliff by coming up with a 
new so-called Plan B alternative. He could not even get that through 
his caucus. There is an unprecedented degree of extremism and 
dysfunction in the House Republican caucus, and I hope that does not 
disrupt the progress we have made on the fiscal cliff. We will have to 
wait and see. Today will tell.

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