Don Nickles: “I regret to state to my colleagues it is pretty obvious the Democratic majority leader does not want to pass a stimulus…”

“I regret to state to my colleagues it is pretty obvious the Democratic majority leader does not want to pass a stimulus package. We needed to amend the package. We have a lot of amendments that were pending and we have not had a vote all day. We had amendments this morning on which we were willing to vote, amendments this afternoon on which we were willing to vote. That was how we would work our way through and have a bill that would pass and go to conference. Obviously, for some reason, the majority leader decided, no, he would file cloture, have cloture on his underlying proposal, which many Members believe falls far short of providing any stimulus. It provides a lot of spending. The majority leader's underlying proposal has spending for rebate, $14 billion for people who did not pay taxes. They certainly did not pay any income tax or they would have gotten a tax cut last year. They may have paid payroll taxes, but likely they are available for an earned-income tax credit, and in many cases three or four times the payroll tax they paid. So basically, $14 billion in welfare reform payments that many were trying to call a tax cut or rebate, but it was not a rebate. There is another $5 billion for an entitlement program for States, supposedly to help pay for health care costs, but it was in the form of an entitlement.”