Bob Dole: “This is legislation that not only affects Governors, as the Presiding Officer knows what it meant, unfunded mandates…”

“This is legislation that not only affects Governors, as the Presiding Officer knows what it meant, unfunded mandates, what an impact it has on States; it also affects cities and counties and other subdivisions. The mayors support it. The legislators support it. Right now, Senator Kempthorne is in a press conference with private sector groups. It also affects the private sector because if an unfunded mandate comes, it is always passed through higher taxes or some other way. So it is strongly supported by the private sector, by the public sector. It has broad bipartisan support and should have broad bipartisan support. I hope that my colleagues would limit amendments on this bill to those that are legitimate amendments that may affect some real concern they have with this legislation. But I think in this legislation it is an opportunity for us to demonstrate in a bipartisan way that we understand the problem; we want to deal with the problem. And so far it has been dealt with in a bipartisan way.”