Dan Coats: “I came to the floor before I heard the announcement that apparently we are closing in, thankfully, on something which I…”

“I came to the floor before I heard the announcement that apparently we are closing in, thankfully, on something which I don't have all the details of as yet. So I can't simply say hooray, this is exactly what we ought to do. I think neither side is going to be able to say this is what we wanted to do. But in recognition of the fact that we are careening now--hours are ticking--hours away from a devastating impact on Americans all across the country, every taxpayer--Senator Lieberman announced the statistics relative to the impact on the average family in his State, and the same is true for Indiana and for all 50 States, to impose the massive tax increases which will occur on every taxpayer at midnight tonight, without addressing that, it is just simply unacceptable. It is hard for a lot of us to swallow how little we did in addressing the larger fiscal issue in this country in order to get past this imposed deadline on something I did not vote for and did not support because I could see it coming to this end, and it was absolutely the wrong way to legislate and the wrong way to govern--pushing us toward this fiscal cliff, laying that dark cloud of uncertainty over every business in America, every household in America. Everyone who had any interest in investing or was trying to plan for the future kept saying: I can't make a decision. I can't make plans. I don't know what you are going to do. Are we going over the cliff? Are my taxes going to rise?…”