Thomas Daschle: “I hope the House will take the matter up immediately, perhaps as early as this afternoon, and get it to the President.…”

“I hope the House will take the matter up immediately, perhaps as early as this afternoon, and get it to the President. As has been noted, the President has indicated already he supports the extension. I think it is now up to the House to do their part so that these people will be a little more confident they can be given some assistance now. Too many of them have already run out of benefits to which they are entitled. We have to act now. For those who have lamented the fact we could not reach a compromise, 56 Senators went on record today looking for that compromise. We only fell four short. There were a couple of absentees. So there is no doubt that there is a growing percentage, an overwhelming majority, in my view, who want to move forward. I would have only hoped some of those who lamented this could have supported cloture so we could have had the ticket to conference. We were denied that. But I have said on the floor before, and I will say it again, I am open to any overtures, any suggestions, on how we might do it, that will allow the 60 votes required to move forward. Anytime I can be assured that a 60-vote margin can be achieved, we will bring this bill back up. It is unfortunate we could not do more than this, but I am very pleased and grateful to colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their willingness to support this.”