Russ Feingold: “Mr. President, I thought this was a colloquy on the issue of whether there were spending limits in this bill. The…”

“Mr. President, I thought this was a colloquy on the issue of whether there were spending limits in this bill. The Senator from Kentucky and the Senator from Utah have come out here today and said, time and again, that there are mandatory spending limits or that there are spending limits that force you to lose something that you have now. We have to clear this up. I am going to stay out here as long as this bill is up to clear it up. The example the Senator from Kentucky used suggested that if somebody started to spend what they used to spend, they would lose something they used to have. It is not true. Our bill does not cause a person who wants to spend money to lose anything. If they want to go over the limit, they still get the lowest commercial rate. They never had the benefits of the bill in the first place. So let us be very clear about this, there is no gun to anyone's head. That is just false. In a State where the limit is $1 million, a person can spend $10 million, just as they can today, and they lose nothing. There is no gun to anyone's head in this bill. It only provides benefits to those who are willing to comply with it. I challenge the Senator from Kentucky at any point in this process to suggest where anyone is forced to give up what they have now. People can spend themselves into oblivion on this bill still.”