On the recordDecember 17, 2010
the path is clear that we can finish our work relatively soon. As I indicated earlier, we are going to have two votes in the morning. Even if cloture is invoked on one or both of those matters, there is no reason we couldn't complete that work tomorrow. There is no reason we would have to extend that into Sunday. We will be happy to do that because we are going to work every day--every day--until we finish this legislative session. If we get those two things out of the way, we have minimal things left to do. We have to do the health care as it relates to 9/11. Of course, we have to complete the funding for the government. We know what happened last night, so we are looking forward to doing the CR. It is a tremendous disappointment as to what it doesn't do for our country, but that is where we are. The Republicans made that choice, and the American people need to understand that. I was told 6 or 7 days are needed to debate the START treaty. That is easy to do. We can complete that very quickly. It all depends on our friends on the other side of the aisle, whether they want to continue, as they have this whole Congress, throwing roadblocks in front of everything we do to move forward to a culmination of this debate. We have done some very important things during this Congress, but there is nothing--nothing--more important than the START treaty because it has ramifications far greater than our own country. So I hope everyone will be patient.
