Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I will be brief. This deals with two amendments, and both do the same thing, except for the way in which they are paid for. I appreciate very much Senator Reid's interest in this as the leader. I have worked on this issue, as everybody knows, for a long time. We passed unanimously in the Senate last year a home buyer tax credit which ended on April 30 for contract date. Unfortunately, because of the backlog of appraisals and the current FDIC regulation, a lot of people who qualified for the credit are not going to be able to close by the end of June, and they will lose the credit because we put a June 30 closing date as the deadline for closing the credit earned by the contract of April 30. Both amendments merely move that June 30 date to the end of September, which gives another 90 days to close the transaction that has already been under contract for 60 days. It ensures Americans they will get what the Senate promised them in terms of the tax credit, if they in fact performed and qualified prior to April 30. The difference in the two amendments is the pay-for. One is doing away with the deductibility of punitive damages, which is Senator Reid's. The other is mine, which takes it from the unspent $50 billion in stimulus money. And the pay-for, by the way, in both cases, is not a lot of money in the scheme of things. It is a lot of money to me and you, but it is $140 million and not $50 billion.…”