The President believes, very strongly, that billionaires and those worth more than $100 million, should pay what firefighters, teachers, and nurses pay as their effective tax rate.

This was bad before. It has only gotten worse.

Over the last 45 years in this country there has been a massive--massive--redistribution of wealth.

It speaks to whether or not we can go beyond the needs of the lobbyists.

If Medicare does that, we lower the cost of prescription drugs by 50 percent. Not bad.

Today, in America, we have more income and wealth inequality than we have had in 100 years.

We should simplify that and make sure, to quote the Secretary, the more veterans--I think the goal is to get more veterans into the VA.

I am a co-sponsor of Medicare for All as well, and the incredible challenge we have with healthcare, as many of my colleagues have said, it is too expensive.

So I think that instead of spending a huge amount of money in the Federal bureaucracy to determine whether in fact somebody was exposed to toxins from a burn pit, exposed to Agent Orange, maybe we just say that if you were a veteran who…

The idea of a presumptive is to sweep in or lower the threshold of evidence in places where the science in the aggregate is strong but the science in the particular is difficult.

But we spend money on health care, to be sure, but we also spend a huge amount of money on the bureaucracy to determine whether somebody is eligible or not.

At the end of the day--and I know not everybody in this room agrees with me--health care happens to be a human right for all Americans, in my view, and especially for people who put their lives on the line, such as our veterans.

I think I would hope that we could all agree that if we are spending a dollar on VA health care spend it on health care, not a bureaucracy to determine whether or not the veteran, in fact, was exposed or not exposed.

I appreciate the commitment of the majority leader to ensure that I will receive rollcall votes on these two issues. Having received the majority leader's firm commitment, I will not object. I ask unanimous consent to address the body for…

reserving the right to object. The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator is recognized.

let me thank the majority leader for his willingness to put my two motions to instruct on the floor next week for a vote. And I want to take a minute to explain to my colleagues and the American people what these amendments are about. As I…

I am requesting votes on two very important issues regarding this competition bill: No. 1 to put the Senate on record in opposition to providing $53 billion in corporate welfare to the highly profitable microchip industry, with no…

That`s an abrogation of everything the Senate should stand for. You had a Republican member who went way over the time allotted and ignore the rules of the committee, badgered the nominee with would not even let her answer the questions…