Paul Coverdell: “I appreciate the efforts of both leaders. But the point is, we are still in a filibuster. When this proposal was in the…”

“I appreciate the efforts of both leaders. But the point is, we are still in a filibuster. When this proposal was in the tax relief bill last year, the President said he would veto the entire tax relief bill if this education savings account was in it. Then we went through one or two filibusters. We tried to deal with it. We had a stand-alone measure last year, and then we had a filibuster attempt. And we tried to proceed to it this year. Now we are trying to bring cloture, which, I might point out, doesn't end the amendments. If you file cloture, it is a Senate rule that says you are going to confine amendments to the subject matter. When I was in the State Senate in Georgia, we had to do that on everything. It was unique that you could amend with nongermane amendments. But that is what we are trying to bring order to. And after we have been through four filibusters, a veto threat, we become concerned that we are not in a serious effort to get to the actual education components. It is my understanding that we have said the other side can have its own substitute, an education amendment. There has been severe resistance to non-education-related amendments, and I understand an amendment of the Senator from Nebraska is still at play. And it is not an education amendment. It is my understanding that an education amendment on our side is being objected to. We are going to have a vote here in a minute.…”