Orderly and Responsible Iraq Redeployment Appropriaitons Act, 2008--Motion to Proceed --

Floor Speech

ORDERLY AND RESPONSIBLE IRAQ REDEPLOYMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2008--MOTION TO PROCEED -- (Senate - November 15, 2007)

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Mr. REID. Mr. President, let me say this: Tomorrow morning, the third vote in order is going to be a vote to invoke cloture on the farm bill. My friends on the other side of the aisle, my Republican friends, are near bringing this bill down. That is a shame. All those farm States out there--and there are lots of them--and all those farm communities--and there are lots of them--need to look to the Republicans for killing the farm bill. If they vote, and they should vote cloture to stop this silliness that has been going on now for 10 days, 11 days, they can still offer amendments. Once cloture is invoked, they have the 30 hours to offer amendments. We can enter into an agreement. If they want to spend a half hour on each amendment, 15 minutes to a side, whatever they want to do that is reasonable, but they have been unwilling to be reasonable. I guess they want, as I indicated earlier, the Democrats not to have an accomplishment. But the fault of the farm bill is at their feet. You don't have to look further than down at their feet. They are stopping an important piece of legislation, a bipartisan piece of legislation, and they are doing it for what I believe are very bad motives.

It is a shame. The American farm programs are good programs. This bill makes them better. Is this bill perfect? Of course not.

I went over the schedule with my staff as to what we can do in December. We don't have the luxury of spending a long time on this farm bill. We could if cloture is invoked. We could come back and finish this bill in a short period of time. If it is not invoked, we are going to be hard pressed to get the farm bill completed very soon.

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