Thomas Daschle: “If the Senator is asking me a question, I respond by saying, absolutely. But let me give him one illustration of my…”

“If the Senator is asking me a question, I respond by saying, absolutely. But let me give him one illustration of my skepticism about his question. There must have been now, as he said, 20--maybe more--staff meetings over the course of the last 6 or 8 months. As he and I discussed this matter and as our staffs discussed this matter, attention has turned to the compensation trust fund. We were absolutely startled, surprised, deeply troubled by this remarkable movement away from the trust fund number the committee had included: $153 billion. The pending bill has $109 billion. My staff and I have both asked staff of the majority leader on several occasions, Is there a way to find a reasonable number? We have been stonewalled every single time when that issue has been discussed. It has not been discussed. It is not even discussable on the other side. It does not do any good to sit and look across each other at the table if we cannot have a meaningful discussion about some of the differences we have. If all we do over the course of the next week is to say this is our number, with some expectation that maybe by saying it 100 times we will concede that then has to be the number, this will be one of the most fruitless experiences he and I will have had in our time in the Senate. So yes, there has to be a willingness to meet; but if those meetings have meaning, there also has to be willingness to negotiate. Frankly, we have not seen much of that except in the Specter meetings.”