Roy Blunt: “for the last few days the Senate has worked as the Senate should work. We have had amendments. We have had both sides…”

“for the last few days the Senate has worked as the Senate should work. We have had amendments. We have had both sides working to find solutions; the Defense Authorization Act, the Russia trade agreement, a bipartisan vote on each of those. In fact, every time we have approached legislation that way this year, we have actually gotten something done. The FAA extension, the Transportation bill, the postal reform bill, the farm bill, and now the Defense bill all came out of committee, all had amendments, all had debate, and they all had a bipartisan vote that passed the bill. That is the way I think the Senate should work. I would like to hope it can work that way as we approach the end of the year and as we try not to go over the fiscal cliff. They call it a cliff for a reason. I think a lot of people are acting as though right below the cliff there must be a fiscal ledge, but I don't see the ledge we are going to fall onto. I think we are actually going to--if we go over the cliff, there will be some harm that is done. If we are going to take a balanced approach focusing on job creation, we have to do the things that get spending under control as well as the things that might produce more revenue. Nobody in the President's party has yet endorsed the $1.6 trillion tax package he has talked about--or I don't think there is a growing demand to have the permanent debt limit increased.…”