Jim Inhofe: “I am going to expand my remarks from my original intent because of what I have been listening to on the floor. I really…”

“I am going to expand my remarks from my original intent because of what I have been listening to on the floor. I really reserved this time to talk about two very significant things that happened. In fact, 53 years ago in 1959--and I have to ask the question as it gets closer and closer to Christmas: Why are we here? There is always a lot of theater right before Christmastime. The things we are talking about now could well be taken care of afterward. It could be done after we have a chance to look and assess the damages of Sandy. As far as the fiscal cliff is concerned, this is something that we have known about for a long time. Right now it seems that in this body--and the other body down the hall in the House--that they don't want to do anything until it gets close to Christmas, that somehow people are at home watching, and sitting with bated breath and wondering what wisdom we are going to extol. I don't know if that is true in other States, but I know that it is not true in Oklahoma. I told them this was going to happen. I told them before the election in October. I introduced a bill, S. 3473. I introduced that bill because I knew what was going to happen. What we have been talking about here in the last few minutes during the colloquy that I came in and caught the last part of is this Sandy issue. This is always interesting.…”