Russ Feingold: “All of us who work on the issue with him consider him our commander, in effect. We, of course, are well aware not only…”

“All of us who work on the issue with him consider him our commander, in effect. We, of course, are well aware not only of the fact that he worked so hard on this issue for years before his Presidential campaign, but he is also doing a tremendous job of channeling enthusiasm from his campaign into actually getting things done on campaign finance on the floor. That is how the 527s got through. Thanks to my colleagues from the other side of the aisle, about whom we often have to talk in less than positive terms on the campaign finance issue, almost every one of them supported us at least on that issue. We are hoping that will lead to a momentum to actually ban soft money and go beyond that. I thank the Senator from Nevada for his questions. To conclude, we will vote on priorities. We will vote on which is putting first things first: paying down the debt to help Social Security and Medicare or cutting taxes for the super-wealthy. We will afford the majority a number of opportunities to let us know how wealthy one has to be before even the majority considers one superwealthy. As I said earlier, I am looking forward to offering an amendment that would simply maintain the estate tax on estates of $20 million or more, and preserve those funds to pay down the debt to help Social Security and Medicare.”