Harry Reid: “another day is gone. The Senate has been unable to appoint conferees on the pension reform bill. I am terribly…”

“another day is gone. The Senate has been unable to appoint conferees on the pension reform bill. I am terribly disappointed that is the case. Forty-four million American workers are covered by private sector pension plans. They need our help. They can only get help if we have a conference with the House, a bill comes back here, and it is approved by both the House and the Senate. Forty-four million people would have peace of mind. Senate Democrats are ready to go to conference now so we can produce a pension reform bill that will improve worker retirement security. Throughout this process, Democrats have worked with Republicans. This is truly a bipartisan effort to produce a bill that passed the Senate with 97 votes. It wasn't until we got into a position of appointing conferees that the majority decided to, for lack of a better description, play games. I have to, frankly, say--I haven't had this job a long time--it has never happened during the time that I have been leader. I don't remember it happening during the time I was assistant leader for 6 years. I don't know when the last time was that we had a prolonged dispute about how many people are going to be on a conference committee. Why are we seeing this now? Perhaps they are trying to stack the deck in favor of downtown interests--I should say some downtown interests.…”