Judd Gregg: “I wish to join with the many Members of this Senate who have congratulated the Senator from Delaware and the Senator…”

“I wish to join with the many Members of this Senate who have congratulated the Senator from Delaware and the Senator from New York for bringing forward this bipartisan initiative, which is really rather extraordinary when you think about it. It is obviously an outgrowth of the fact that the President and the leadership of the Congress have gotten together on how to balance the budget and give a tax cut to working Americans. This bill is a product of that initial agreement which occurred in May. The fact it came out with almost unanimous support out of the Finance Committee is something that we should take very seriously as a Congress and especially as a people, in recognition of the fact that this is a bipartisan initiative. Now the leader of the Democratic Party has come forward, even though a large--well, the entire Finance Committee membership of the Democrat Party voted for the underlying bill--the leader of the Democrat Party has come forward with a proposal as an alternative. I think a couple of comments need to be made about the specifics of that because it has some problems in the way it handles children and families with children.”