It is because the United States stepped in, and at the scale we did, that progress has been made in combating this terrible disease.

We cannot as a country go back to the sidelines and watch these already impoverished and unstable countries fall apart.

As Senator Durbin said to me, when we roll up a major intervention... sometimes we look at what are we leaving behind.

I would like to thank you and Chairman Leahy for convening this important hearing.

Having invested billions of dollars through PEPFAR in what is understood as the fight against HIV/AIDS, we have also strengthened health systems in dozens of countries.

I hope we would instead look at what are we doing to build health forward.

Do you believe these additional benefits would buttress the OLC analysis that the President is in compliance with his obligation to take care that the laws are faithfully executed?

I object, just for a moment. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Objection is heard. The assistant bill clerk continued with the call of the roll.

Madam President, I would like to say to my colleague, Ted Kennedy said to me when I first got here a number of years ago, talking about compromise and that sort of thing--he always said: I am willing to compromise on policy, not on…

Mr. President, our colleagues know the Presiding Officer is a recovering Governor, I am a recovering Governor, Mike Johanns is a recovering Governor. So we are sort of a support group for one another, men and women who used to be somebody…

Mr. President, I came to the floor without any prepared remarks, but I want to say a few words, if I could, about our colleague Mark Pryor. I have affectionately called him ``Hey, man,'' because in Arkansas, when you see one of your…

I believe the American people deserve, and our values demand, exactly this sort of a robust and open debate.

It is not right to expect that the only people who sacrifice would be our troops and their families.

We cannot write another blank check for war, as was unfortunately the case under previous Presidents and previous Congresses for previous conflicts.

It is my real hope that we will take action--an action that leads to change, that leads to hope.

The costs, both the lifetime costs, the moral cost, the fiscal costs on African-American men in particular, as my colleague, Senator Booker detailed earlier, is overwhelming.

I am clear that without this sort of action that you, Mr. Chairman, have led in leading this bipartisan bill, we will not make progress.

There is an undeniably disparate impact on communities of color and there are several different ways that we could also have broken that out.