Frank Pallone: “let me say that I do plan initially to respond to some of the comments that were made by my Republican colleagues about…”

“let me say that I do plan initially to respond to some of the comments that were made by my Republican colleagues about the potential stimulus bill that I gather we may see on the House Floor as early as tomorrow. Regardless of the substance of the stimulus package that the Republican leadership may bring up tomorrow, I think the bottom line is, and everyone needs to know, that it is going nowhere. They are fully aware of the fact that it is going nowhere. I think what we are going to see tomorrow, and I think it is very unfortunate, is basically a replay of what happened a couple of months ago when, in the aftermath of September 11 and the World Trade Center and Pentagon tragedies, there was an effort in the few weeks afterwards, because of the realization of the impact on the economy and because the recession was only, if you will, accelerated by the events on September 11, there was a recognition that we needed to do a stimulus package to get the economy going again, and that the only way to achieve that, given that we have a divided government, one body Democrat, one body Republican majority, that we needed to work across party lines and to bring the House and the Senate together.”