Don Nickles: “I object. Mr. President, I compliment our colleague from Alaska for trying to pass a clean, simple extension. This is…”

“I object. Mr. President, I compliment our colleague from Alaska for trying to pass a clean, simple extension. This is the same language Senator Clinton and I passed last January. It is the same language Senator Fitzgerald passed with us, I believe January 7 or 8. It is the same language we passed a couple of times for a clean extension. It is not a doubling of the program. It is not taking a 13-week Federal program and turning it into a 26-week program. It is not expanding the definition of uninsured or unemployed to include part-time workers, or to include a whole variety of people who, frankly, the States don't now cover. I will tell my colleagues that we are not going to double the program. We are not going to triple the program. The Senator from Alaska offered to extend the current program which we have been using for the last 2 or so years. That is the proposal she will make today and, I would expect, the proposal she will make tomorrow. That is the only proposal, in my opinion, that will pass.”