Dan Coats: “I came down to the floor early to line up in the queue to talk about taxes and the proposal that has just been…”

“I came down to the floor early to line up in the queue to talk about taxes and the proposal that has just been discussed. I sat here in amazement as the Senator from Utah has just expressed, and as the minority leader expressed the redefinition of ``filibuster.'' It was a tortured effort on the part of the majority leader to try to redefine it in a way that had just the opposite effect of what a filibuster really is. I wish the majority leader had been at our caucus luncheon yesterday when we debated whether we would vote against the cloture motion to proceed on this bill. The consent of our caucus was, no; we welcome a debate on taxes. We welcome the opportunity to move forward and discuss our two visions of how we need to revive this economy. So let's not use parliamentary tricks or a parliamentary procedure to avoid that debate and to avoid a vote on the President's proposal. We realized there was the opportunity for the majority leader to use parliamentary tricks and procedures in order to deny us the opportunity to offer our own version of what we thought we should do with our Tax Code and provisions, particularly as it reflects this particular tax on small business, but we welcome the opportunity to come and debate that and work through it and, hopefully, make an offer that is acceptable. So the minority leader came down here this morning and turned to the majority leader and said: We are going to give you your vote.…”