It happens all the time, and in our State there were proposals to do this.

I wanted to follow up on a few things that some of the other Senators asked.

And to do that, we have to get the best possible results for the American taxpayers at the lowest cost, and, to me, this means transparency and accountability.

I have always believed that we need to restore stability in our financial markets, and you have been a leader with that.

We are trying to get here, instead of a short-term view of our economy and our business markets, we are trying to get a long-term view on trying to encourage responsible behavior.

We want to do it in a prudent way, and we want to do it quickly.

American households now stand at owing 130 percent of their annual income in total debt.

So we are at a 9.4 percent unemployment rate.

the tax credit was incredibly helpful, the $8000 tax credit; that is, as we reach the end of the year, that a lot of younger people or first-time home buyers were starting to buy.

the companies seem to be--not in every sector, but some of these companies seem to be evening out, or actually seeing some improvement.

I heard just this week from a woman in Rice, Minnesota, who works to provide residential services for the disabled.

We will have them in a week or so. We have nine states now in double digits.

That is quite a difference.

Our state now went, we lag about a month, but from the 8.2 percent down to 8.1 percent unemployment.

I think it is a big concern that we keep having that happen.

the unemployment rate of Veterans since the Gulf War is higher than the unemployment rate for people who have not served our country.

When you include the discouraged workers, what is the unemployment rate then?

We do know that profitable companies are more likely to hire than those that are faltering.