Thomas Daschle: “Senator Lott and I talked about this very question last week. I understand his desire to move to the legislation. I said…”

“Senator Lott and I talked about this very question last week. I understand his desire to move to the legislation. I said I would be supportive of an effort to do that. But there are two outstanding issues. The one that we talked about last week, and continues to be a very big concern, is what kind of a commitment we can get from the administration on overall funding. I had indicated at that time when we discussed this matter last week that even though that is critical to all of us, and even though many of our colleagues believe more strongly in that than any other question, that I was prepared to move to the bill even if we had not yet completed our discussions with the administration and our Republican colleagues about that, in spite of the fact that many of our colleagues were very concerned about taking that approach. The second issue, of course, has to do with having the language.”