J. Exon: “I simply point out that I think we are debating a smelly dead polecat or a straw man. Both of the bills, the Republican…”

“I simply point out that I think we are debating a smelly dead polecat or a straw man. Both of the bills, the Republican bill and the amendment that we have offered, both address what has been pointed out here as something wrong. Another way of saying that is that there are general agreements on both sides of the aisle that these kind of things must be corrected. I simply want to point out that we agree with the points made by the chairman, my friend and colleague from New Mexico, and the junior Senator from New York. I simply say of the 800-page bill that we have agreed to cut down, one or two of the pages in that bill that address the very same thing that is adequately addressed in your bill, are two of the pages that we will not drop. I simply say, I think we have enough to debate about. I want to make the point there are lots of similarities between the two bills, and it may take 800 pages to define some of the objections that we have which we will continue to debate and point out.”