Byron Dorgan: “I, too, was inspired by the remarks of a couple of colleagues. My colleague from Nevada just described a rather curious…”

“I, too, was inspired by the remarks of a couple of colleagues. My colleague from Nevada just described a rather curious circumstance. We had colleagues come to the Chamber of the Senate and ask the question: Where is the stimulus package? Where is the legislation designed to provide economic recovery and lift to the American economy? It is as if they have forgotten the last couple of weeks. That stimulus package, or the economic recovery package, was before the Senate. We had debate on it. I was here and began debate on that. We were discussing it. Then the other side decided they would make a point of order against that stimulus package. A point of order was valid against it, as there is against the Republican package authored by Senator Grassley, as there will be against the House package. All of them violate the Budget Act. We understand that. This is an emergency, and all of us understand that passing a stimulus package to provide for economic recovery is outside of the Budget Act. But they are the ones who decided to make a point of order and take it off the floor of the Senate, and they did. Now they are asking: Where is it? They know where it is. It was before the Senate, it is now on the calendar, but it is not before us for debate because they made a point of order against the bill. There is a certain genius in being able to ignore facts, but it must certainly be uncomfortable in the long run to do that.”