I rise today to discuss an issue that some constituents of mine brought to my attention when I was in Nashville this summer. We met to discuss the plight of the Baha'i in Iran. The Baha'i faith was founded in Persia in 1844 and is one of…

I just returned from the Hudson Institute, a distinguished think tank downtown where I made an address called the New Promise of American Life--Less From Washington and More of Ourselves. It included a panel of the following people: Kate…

the premise of my remarks was that we don't do comprehensive very well in the U.S. Congress. That was challenged by some of the conservatives on the panel today. That was my point. My suggestion was that those who were elected in the 2010…

We are in the middle of a very severe economic recession. We have had more than 9.5 percent unemployment for 16 out of the last 17 months. We have only had 30 months in modern history where we have had unemployment that high. Almost half…

But he did say very clearly that given the length and severity of the economic downturn, that the logical thing to do would be to keep the current rates exactly where they are for at least 2 years because not to do so would clearly cause…

The idea is that you don't raise taxes in the middle of an economic downturn because it makes it harder to create jobs. And that raising those taxes now makes no sense.

I was delighted to see the President invite the leaders down to the White House for such a good meeting. I know they have had some joint meetings before, but we are never going to get anywhere in the Senate where we have a relatively equal…

The government runs out of money Friday. Taxes go up at the end of the month. Republicans have written a letter to the majority leader that says: Let's focus on those two things. Let's fund the government and let's keep the tax rates where…

There must be something about the interval between the Thanksgiving holiday and Christmas and the effect it has on our Democratic friends. Again, this year, as they did last year, they begin to disappear for hours at a time into a room…

if I could reflect for a few minutes on what we have heard. There is a lot of passion in the Senate. This is actually a place where there is supposed to be. We come here to debate the most important issues that are before us. Let me talk…

I will continue my remarks and the Senator may gain the floor later. We are working on making certain that if the New START treaty is approved, we are not left with a collection of wet matches. We want to make sure the nuclear warheads we…

16 Senators will retire this year. There is also a pretty big turnover in this body, but that is a lot of Senators at once. We are losing an enormous amount of talent, but, of course, we are gaining a lot of talent with the new Senators. I…