Orrin Hatch: “I appreciate my colleague, and I am trying to accommodate him. I always try to accommodate my colleagues. On the other…”

“I appreciate my colleague, and I am trying to accommodate him. I always try to accommodate my colleagues. On the other hand, his side has stonewalled this since last Wednesday. Thursday was a full day we lost. We are going to be here Friday. We did not do very much yesterday; today, nothing. I am very concerned that we are not moving ahead. We are not doing what we should do. This is an important matter. It is an important bill. I chatted with the President earlier today. He indicated how important it is to him personally, what this bill means to our country, how important it is to get it passed and to pass it in a form the House will accept, which is what I am trying to do. I do not think it has been this side that has slowed this down, although I do not want to pick on either side. The Senators are certainly within their rights to slow-walk this all they want to. On the other hand, it is very difficult for me to sit here, having sat here all day and yesterday and would have been Thursday and Friday as well and Saturday if necessary. It strikes me as interesting that now they want all these amendments when they have had all this time to bring up their amendments and nobody was going to stop them. All I can say is that I hope we come here tomorrow prepared to do amendments or do them tonight. I am prepared to stay if we have to. But the fact is that we are not going anywhere on this right now.…”