Chuck Grassley: “I happen to be the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee that has jurisdiction over tax legislation, tax…”

“I happen to be the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee that has jurisdiction over tax legislation, tax credits, health insurance, unemployment compensation, and most issues that deal with the stimulus package. My involvement, particularly with Senator Baucus as chairman of the committee, and obviously the top Democrat on the committee, has been in trying to arrive at some sort of bipartisan agreement on a stimulus package. We are not given much credit for what we have tried to do, if you compare the environment laid out by the Senate majority leader. For instance, I don't think it takes into consideration the fact that sometimes during our negotiations Senator Baucus was under an unwritten rule laid down by the Senate majority leader that if two-thirds of the Democrat caucus didn't agree with what he was negotiating or what he had agreed to, then it could not be accepted. That probably wasn't meant as a hard and fast rule, but it was surely interpreted as putting Senator Baucus in an impossible position to negotiate.”