On the recordOctober 4, 2011
I know I only have in my head the math I learned from Mrs. Picker at Searchlight Elementary School. But I do know, when we have 53--and I have told everyone here we will get a majority of the Senate--a majority of the Senate, not a majority of the Democrats, a majority of the Senate--that is not very bipartisan opposition to this bill. Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I can only quote my good friend the majority leader who repeatedly has said, most recently in early 2007, that in the Senate it has always been the case we need 60 votes. This is my good friend the majority leader when he was the leader of this majority in March of 2007, and he said it repeatedly both when he was in the minority as leader of the minority or leader of the majority, that it requires 60 votes certainly on measures that are controversial. So it is not at all unusual that the President's proposal of this consequence, that would raise taxes, that would spend $\1/2\ trillion in a second stimulus bill, would have to achieve 60 votes. That is the way virtually all business is done in the Senate, certainly not extraordinarily unusual.
