Don Nickles: “at this time, I tell my friend and colleague, I will not object because I have a great deal of respect for him. We are…”

“at this time, I tell my friend and colleague, I will not object because I have a great deal of respect for him. We are ready to proceed with a lot of amendments on the stimulus bill. My colleague from Arizona has an amendment to make the estate tax elimination permanent. As people know, it is effective for 1 year and goes off the books; it sunsets. It should be made permanent. We have other amendments dealing with net offset carryback for 5 years. We would like to have a vote on that amendment. We have amendments that we believe will help stimulate the economy. We would like to have votes on them. I guess we can go into a period for morning business, have the caucuses, and people can strategize. Democrats and Republicans do have several amendments pending. Frankly, a lot of us would like to vote on those amendments to improve the package the majority leader introduced, which we believe comes up a little short. I am not going to object to his request for a period for morning business. My understanding is we can debate the stimulus package through that period. But I hope we will have a chance for Democrats and Republicans to offer their amendments later today and tomorrow. So I mention to my colleague, who is my very good friend, that we want to have some votes to improve this package today, but I shall not object to his request.”