Thomas Daschle: “I hope everybody realizes this was an exercise without any real value because the House went out last night. Even if we…”

“I hope everybody realizes this was an exercise without any real value because the House went out last night. Even if we had passed it tonight, there is no prospect for the House to take this legislation up until after they come back in 2 weeks. We have been waiting for the House to give us some indication as to the size of the debt limit increase they support and some understanding of what they will do. We have yet to hear what the House plans are with regard to the debt limit. The last I heard is they were having some difficulty in reaching agreement, and because they have not reached an agreement, they do not have the votes to increase the debt under any conditions at this point. There is some indication now they are planning to offer the debt limit increase as an amendment to the supplemental, but the supplemental has yet to be presented to the Congress. So we do not have a supplemental. We do not have any indication from the House as to what their intentions are with regard to the size or the timeframe within which the debt will be considered and extended. So even if we did take up the debt limit tonight, as I wish we could do as well, unfortunately we are still going to have to wait until after the House acts on the legislation for us to be able to complete our work. So I do hope when we come back we can work in a bipartisan manner and send clean legislation either to the House or wait for the House to send similar legislation to us. I yield the floor.”