John Thune: “I want to take issue with something that was said on the Senate floor earlier about this being rushed and that…”

“I want to take issue with something that was said on the Senate floor earlier about this being rushed and that Republicans are blocking this or slowing this down or delaying this bill. I have to take issue with that. If you think about the enormity of what we are dealing with, we are talking about spending $1 trillion of our hard-working American tax dollars. We have been on this bill literally since last Tuesday. So 4 days last week and today--it seems to me, at least by Washington standards, that is pretty much light speed for moving anything around here. So to suggest that somehow Republicans are blocking or delaying this bill is a complete misstatement of the facts with regard to anything historical in the Senate. When you are dealing with big issues, when you are dealing with issues of consequence, the Senate typically takes a certain amount of time and considers amendments. We have had 26 rollcall votes on this bill, only 5 amendments have been accepted. Unfortunately, most of the amendments that have been voted on and been accepted are amendments that have added to the cost rather than reduced the cost. But the point simply is the 4 or 5 days of time in the Senate to spend $1 trillion. I said this before, but I will repeat it: $800 billion, which is the base amount of the bill, when you add in the interest costs of about $350 billion, it gets you up to almost $1.2 trillion.”