Chuck Grassley: “on Friday the 13th, there is superstition that says we shouldn't be walking under ladders, we should avoid black cats…”

“on Friday the 13th, there is superstition that says we shouldn't be walking under ladders, we should avoid black cats crossing our paths, and certainly you wouldn't purposely break mirrors, would you. But since this is the first significant piece of legislation in this Congress, and under our new President, we ought to take a look in the legislative mirror at what we are doing when we vote here today. If you look at the developments of this legislation, you will see some patterns. No. 1, House Democrats put together their priorities and drove their priorities through the House of Representatives. They didn't pretend to take any Republican input and they left out 11 of their own Members in the House of Representatives, as we saw from the 11 Democrats who voted against it. In the Senate, Republicans were consulted, and that is a very positive thing, but we were never invited to the negotiating table. We saw this pattern repeat itself at committee levels and on the floor here and, of course, the most obvious one, at the conference stage. When Republicans offered ideas, generally they were rejected.”