Don Nickles: “I suggested that we take up the House-passed bill. That would be the logical thing to do. If we are going to pass a…”

“I suggested that we take up the House-passed bill. That would be the logical thing to do. If we are going to pass a stimulus package, the House has already passed it. I told the majority leader I would work with him to come up with a finite list of amendments, a mutually agreed-upon list of amendments or number of amendments, and work to pass it. He wasn't agreeable to that yet. Maybe a little later he will be. Instead, he wanted to come up with a list of amendments he thought were mutually agreeable. I don't think there is a consensus on a list of amendments. I will just go over a couple of them. The underlying bill I wanted to take up had New York in it. I will tell my colleague from New York, this amendment does not have New York in it. That doesn't mean I agree with everything that is in the House bill; I don't. So if we start with that as the package, I will probably try to make some changes and some deletions to the House bill. I look at the package the majority leader wants to bring up, and I say: Wait a minute, where is the beef? Where is the stimulation? There is no assistance for New York.”