Don Nickles

First I wish to compliment Senator Clinton from New York for her speech in criticizing the International Olympic Committee for refusing to allow us to use the damaged flag that flew in the recovery efforts at the World Trade Center. I find…

I am disappointed today that the majority leader has decided to pull down the stimulus package. We are going to have a cloture vote on the majority leader's package. He calls it a stimulus package, but there is no stimulus in it. There is…

This amendment is a very positive amendment. The Senator from Montana, Mr. Baucus, introduced an amendment that would add another $2.3 billion in emergency spending for agriculture. We debated that last week. We defeated it. We defeated it…

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…

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…

I have heard some people say this will cost $8 billion. I have heard other estimates that it will cost $10 billion. I ask my colleague from Illinois, is that $15 billion in addition to the underlying amendment or $15 billion total? He is…

If my memory serves me correctly, the Daschle amendment has an unemployment extension of 13 weeks, and that is about $8 billion, I believe. The cost of this is $15 billion. This amendment costs a lot of money, as can be expected, because…

The essence of the Senator's amendment is there would be accelerated depreciation of 30 percent for 3 years in contrast to Senator Daschle's amendment, which is 30 percent for a timeframe between September of 2001 and 2002.

That is correct. The House-passed bill, H.R. 3529 effectively reformed AMT prospectively. That is correct. It has had no benefit for Enron, no cash benefits for IBM. So I want to make that clear. Also, just for the record, I just had a…

To correct my colleague, the bill we are trying to bring up is H.R. 3529, and it contains reformed corporate AMT. The bill the Senator is referring to did pass the House earlier. It is not what this Senator is trying to bring up? The…

I will tell my friend and colleague, if the majority leader is willing to take up the House-passed tax bill, I will work with him to come up with a limited number of amendments and see if we can't get that passed in the next couple of…

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…

I don't think it is good policy for us to go out and borrow $14 billion to have to pay over $1 billion a year in interest basically to hand out money and call it a tax cut when they didn't pay taxes. I find that objectionable. Maybe I am…

My intention was, if we want to repeal the death tax and pass the extenders, this Senator would have no objection. I am sure we could whip it and see if there would be no objection.

I also compliment Senator Allen for his leadership and passage of a bill a few moments ago that will allow closed-circuit TV viewing for the trial of the alleged terrorists. I compliment Senator Allen because I know he has a lot of…

We did a lot of good things this year and some things we didn't get done. One thing we did not get done was passage of the stimulus package. That is unfortunate. It became way too partisan. It did not need to be. Recessions are not…

I cannot agree to that. I do not know if we are playing one-upmanship. I would like to pass the bill that passed the House. So I will not agree to that.

It is just one farm organization, but it happens to be the largest farm organization in the country.

That wasn't my understanding. Regardless, I will vigorously oppose cloture if that is what the majority leader's intention is. I urge him to ask consent to postpone the cloture vote until we determine what the outcome of some of these…

Then on the issue of cloture, some people are assuming if you vote no on cloture you are filibustering the bill. I disagree. Isn't it correct, if cloture were invoked, the amendment you are now offering would be nongermane?

I want to maybe take issue with the comments that were made that Republicans have been conducting a filibuster on this bill. Will the Senator correct me, but haven't we had germane amendments every day we have been on this farm bill?

I compliment my friend. He has assisted this Senator, and he has assisted other Senators, particularly on district court judges. If my numbers are correct, I believe we are now at 27 judges confirmed, which equals the number of judges that…

I am concerned if we get cloture, there are a lot of amendments that will fall. The Dorgan amendment happens to deal with payment limitations. I am concerned that it might fall. I have an amendment dealing with payment limitations. That is…

Yes. Mr. McCAIN. Is the Senator aware that we even had a hearing in the Commerce Committee in Chicago where representatives of the airport, the mayor, the Governor and a number of Members of Congress testified that this is a very big issue…

I urge my colleagues, I don't think we have to get in a trance, and say I am for this and not for that. I don't think now is the time to make that decision. Let us make that decision when we are considering all airports and when O'Hare is…