MS. PERINO: Well, what you see right now in the Senate is haggling over important issues, big issues -- issues that we think largely need to be debated outside of an economic growth package. The purpose of the economic growth package is to stimulate the economy. And as Speaker Pelosi, herself, has said, this needs to be timely, targeted and temporary, and that was a compromise that she hammered out with Speaker Boehner and with Secretary Paulson.

We think that that legislation that was agreed to on a bipartisan basis and originated in the House, because that's where tax bills originate, should be taken up by the Senate. We understand that they're going to do what they do in the Senate, which is haggle over these issues, but on many of them, we think that they could be -- that they are important enough to be discussed, but they should discussed outside of the economic growth package because they won't be stimulative to the economy.

seen at 12:22, 5 February in Whitehouse Press Briefings. Email this to a friend.
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