The following Senators are necessarily absent: the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. Burr), the Senator from Georgia (Mr. Chambliss), the Senator from Indiana (Mr. Coats), the Senator from South Carolina (Mr. DeMint), the Senator from…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so ordered. Avoiding Sequestration

Mr. President, today I would like to address some of the recent press chatter that attempts to paint Republicans as closet Keynesians because we oppose the massive defense cuts that are contained in the Budget Control Act--the automatic…

We want more of those companies.

Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.

Mr. President, members of Congress are debating fewer bills, casting fewer votes, and holding fewer hearings. Meanwhile, important government agencies including the Department of Defense and the Government Accountability Office are being…

We cannot continue to betray the trust of our Nation's veterans by not doing everything in our power to make sure that they have access to employment.

The status quo is just not acceptable.

I think one of the reasons that this data has been such a waste of time is because no one has been paying attention to the fact that they are not paying attention to it.

I just wonder if we were even doing the oversight that is necessary to find the fronting.

Maybe we could do away with some of the bureaucracies around this issue and take that savings and put it into a fund that could----

USERRA protections are the protections that were put into the law that prohibit the discrimination against members of the Guard and Reserve in connection with their military service.

Perhaps the way we do it is to before we try to do away with it, we try to make it public and see if it could come to some good and make it transparent.

I am not sure that it accomplished what we wanted it to accomplish, other than providing full employment for a whole lot of lawyers and accountants.

It remains to be seen exactly what effect that is going to have in the future, continuing an operational reserve.

Breaking down these barriers is critical and requires innovative and comprehensive responses.

That is a great idea.

I am happy today to be discussing a subject that I think every American should be concerned about, and that is the employment of our veterans.