We've seen just in the last 3 years, that the number of people who are applying for and getting religious exemptions has doubled--just in 3 years.

We have to decide, as a community, do we want to protect the most vulnerable among us, or do we want to provide choices and options for protection?

the Affordable Care Act is working. It is working better, frankly, than many of us who were there at its inception believed it would at this early stage in its implementation. The numbers are pretty hard to argue with. You have got now…

I think there was a natural political dynamic that played out, in which these kids just didn't get represented.

Most educators in my State of Connecticut would love this concept of flexibility, the idea that Washington should just send a chunk of money down to the States and let them decide what to do with it.

Regardless of the terminology, we've got to figure out some way to have accountability.

We need to remember what was happening before NCLB was put into effect. The reality was that the act is named what it's named because there was a whole cohort of kids, millions of them, who were being left behind.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. Department of Homeland Security Funding

I know we are about to bring some final votes on Keystone to the floor, but I want to take a few minutes to speak on the topic we will be focused on next week, and that is the impending crisis at the Department of Homeland Security should…

I believe the latter, the reducing coverage, is not materially affected by this.

the Affordable Care Act, according to you, is, in and of itself, an incentive to move from employer-sponsored care to other forms of health care.

they were pretty wrong in estimating the health care expenditures of the United States in the wake of the passage of the Affordable Care Act.

we have spent about $2 trillion less on health care since the passage of the Affordable Care Act than the CBO had initially estimated.

we're spending, on average, about $1,000 less per Medicare beneficiary than we had initially thought.

we stand by the Iranian people when they are abused by their own government, when their rights are not respected.

If this agreement is not passed--is not agreed to--it does not meet Congress' approval, and the sanctions are gone, and Iran goes back to enriching, you can hear the hue and cry right now.

I think it leaves us weakened.

There is nothing in this agreement built on trust. It is all a matter of verification.

the United States is Assad's air force in Syria and Iran's Air Force in Iraq.

I think we are just not accepting the premise of the sanctions in the first place if we extrapolate and expand it to all sorts of other behavior in the region.

I do not think you would question that.

I certainly believed, when I was voting for those sanctions, that, should Iran choose a different path when it comes to a nuclear weapons future, that we would engage in a conversation about withdrawing some of those sanctions.

The Supreme Leader highly distrusts us, and we highly distrust him in return.

the administration has implemented a string of incoherent and self-defeating policies.

We would be turning away from the NPT. That is, part of this vote would be basically saying we do not trust the NPT.