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   Mr. NICKLES. Madam President, I thank the majority leader and also appreciate his willingness to modify the unemployment compensation amendment to make it basically universal for all States for 13 weeks. I think that is fair, appropriate, and supported by all Senators. I am glad we were able to pass it. I encourage my colleagues in the House to pass it as well.

   Also, our colleague and friend, Senator Landrieu from Louisiana, has suggested improvements to be made on the adoption credit. Senator Bunning also has an amendment dealing with adoption and deductibility. We will work with both colleagues to see if we cannot come up with a package in the not too distant future that I hope all of our colleagues will pass and likewise I hope the House will favorably review.

   I make one additional comment. I am disappointed we have not been successful at making the bridge in partisan warfare to pass the stimulus package to help create jobs. I urge our colleagues not to be quite so fast in the future with cloture votes. I didn't like cloture votes when this side offered them, and I don't like them when the other side offers them. It denies the Senators the opportunity to offer amendments. We had several amendments on this side that we could not offer because of cloture. If cloture were invoked, they would not have the ability to offer a permanent R&D amendment, which I believe has a majority vote; we could not offer making the death tax repeal permanent, which I believe has a majority vote; we could not offer an amendment that Senator Domenici was pushing for, a payroll tax holiday, which many people on both sides of the aisle say has merit.

   I hope in the future, when we are talking about the farm

   bill--and I believe we will go to the farm bill soon--I urge the majority leader not to move forward with cloture. Consider amendments. No one I know wants to filibuster the farm bill, no one was filibustering the stimulus package, but we had several provisions in the stimulus package to try to make it truly stimulative and create jobs. When we get to the farm bill, I hope the first thing we look at is not a cloture vote. Some Members want an amendment to have payment limitations so some farmers are not making millions--corporate farmers are not making millions out of the farm bill. We find out they are under present law. So there is an amendment to have payment limitations. Those amendments would fall if cloture were invoked.

   I urge our colleagues to offer amendments, be timely, be considerate of others, have good debate, find out where the votes are, and, hopefully, not go through the idea of a cloture vote, and if we don't get cloture we pull the bill down. That is a recipe for getting nothing done. That is how the stimulus bill did not pass. We cannot get 60 votes; we will pull the bill down. I wish that were not the result.

   I suggested we maybe take up the stimulus bill and consider X number of amendments on each side and pass the

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   I hope when we take up the agriculture bill, it will not be under cloture, it will be with both sides offering constructive amendments to improve a bill that is in desperate need of improvement.

   I yield the floor.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.

   Mr. REED. I ask unanimous consent to be recognized for morning business.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. We are in morning business.

END