Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act Of 2009--Continued

Floor Speech

SERVICE MEMBERS HOME OWNERSHIP TAX ACT OF 2009--Continued -- (Senate - December 09, 2009)

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Mr. REID. Mr. President, I had a conversation earlier today with the distinguished Republican leader. It appears now that we are going to get the appropriations bill from the House of Representatives. The bill is bipartisan, and everybody has worked hard. There are some conference reports we have completed. Yet we didn't find them to work on the floor, for reasons everyone understands. That bill will come over from the House tomorrow. We can move to that with a simple majority vote, and then if I have to file cloture on it tomorrow, we would have a Saturday cloture vote. Thirty hours after that--sometime Sunday morning--we would have a vote on the conference report.

I have indicated to the Republican leader that it would probably be to everyone's advantage if we allow people to go home for the weekend, rather than going through all these procedural gyrations.

We have worked hard. I had a Senator come to me and say she hadn't been home in 2 or 3 weeks, and it was not a good situation. That Senator said if we have to be here this weekend, she will be here. We need to not be doing things just to delay. I understand the Republican leader doesn't want to do health care. I appreciate that, and we have different positions on that issue.

I see no reason to punish everybody this weekend. I hope the minority will give strong consideration to the proposal I have made. We are waiting for a score to come back from CBO anyway. Anybody who has had experience with CBO knows that will take a matter of days. So I hope the minority will allow a little bit of time to go by so that we can have our respite from the tedious work we have been doing on the Senate floor.

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