Chuck Grassley: “The Senator from Minnesota does not have to apologize. There are always demands upon our time. There are four or five…”

“The Senator from Minnesota does not have to apologize. There are always demands upon our time. There are four or five places we could be at one time. I did not get a chance to hear all of the Senator's speech because I was chairing the Senate Finance Committee on the issue of giving tax relief to working American men and women, a bill that will probably pass here in the month of May. Anyway, I plead with the Senator from Minnesota that he has had a tremendous impact upon this legislation, and it is a better bill in the sense that a lot of things that were brought to our attention are now changes in this bill. But you cannot have perfection. I think the Senator from Minnesota would say he really does not want this bill to pass. So I think it is fair to say he, and other Members who do not want it to pass, will be offering amendments, maybe because they believe in them, but partly it is a process of slowing the legislation down so, again, it may never pass. But I think, unlike 4 and 2 years ago--or maybe more accurately, 3 and 1 year ago--we are starting out with this bill on the floor of the Senate in the first year of a 2-year Congress, where one or two Members of this body are not going to frustrate the will of almost all 535 Members of Congress. And they do not have a President now that is going to veto the bill. So this legislation is going to become law. President Bush will sign this legislation.”