Bill Nelson

Could you comment on the fact that we have just passed and sent to the President a major small business lending bill?

I would like for you to comment, if you will, on the wisdom of a tax policy given the fact that in your testimony you said that the national debt is going to amount to 70 percent of GDP for the next 10 years.

And creates an uncertainty and lack of confidence in the U.S. Government's ability to manage its financial affairs.

I hope and pray is going to be successful, but since they have a threshold that they have to get 14 votes of 18 on the Commission, there is a lot of skepticism that they are going to be able to get that on whatever the package is that they…

You all testified that you do not think that the tax cuts in the stimulus bill had much effect.

I think some of the concepts in terms of infrastructure spending made sense because I think most of us would agree that if Government is going to spend money, you want to spend something that provides long-term returns to the economy.

We have learned in Iraq and Afghanistan that in those kinds of missions, it is not just the U.S. Government.

In your report, you discussed the concept called comprehensive approach. It goes beyond the concept of the whole-of-government concept that was emphasized in the QDR.

There needs to be a coordinated activity with a common set of objectives, working together as much as possible in an organized way to achieve those objectives.

I would ask the Senator, in light of the extremely descriptive word picture that she painted of the family at the breakfast table and the mom and the dad don't want the teenagers to see that folks on Wall Street are getting all of these…

If the Senator would further yield, why do we have to mess up this bill with message amendments? These are political message amendments. For example, there are some amendments that on their own might be desirable amendments. There is an…

First of all, I don't want the Senator to be rushed because I came over here so that I could hear the Senator. The Senator from Louisiana is so articulate and so passionate. She has laid the case out with the bare facts that if there is…

It is going to be good for America. I was pleased to sponsor the amendment along with my friend from Louisiana, the LeMieux-Landrieu amendment, which is the lending facility. It is a provision that will bring money to local community banks…

I ask the question to underscore what the Senator from Louisiana has just said, which is that small business, which is the mainstay of the economic engine in so many of our States-- certainly, that is true with Florida, as a matter of…

Including the Florida Bankers Association, including the Community Bankers Association--because they know what it is. They got dissed on the big TARP--which some of us voted against-- even when we tried to carve out little portions for…

Would the Senator also agree that when you look at the list of all the institutions that support this lending facility, they are some of what we would think of as the most conservative organizations, and they are very much in favor of this?

I would like the Senator from Louisiana to underscore the fact that the $30 billion put into this lending program, which will inure to the benefit of small business, is going to end up multiplying like the fishes and the loaves; it will…

On page 23 of your testimony, you consider counterintelligence to be under-resourced.

We are building consensus in what has otherwise been a consensusless position of the future of the manned space program. The President had proposed one thing. He altered that. Different people have different ideas. Different aerospace…

10 years ago I gave my maiden speech on the floor of the Senate. I was at a desk on the far side of the Chamber. In the course of that speech, I happened to mention that it was my maiden speech. I had been here about a month. I went on. I…

I wish to give the Senate a report on the gulf oilspill. Mother Nature is now developing hurricane and it is very likely within a couple of days of reaching hurricane strength, which is 75 miles per hour or greater, but Mother Nature is…

I want to show the Senate Pensacola Beach yesterday. It has hit us full force. That white is the natural sugary sand of the northwest Florida beaches. You can see as far as the eye can see down to the beach. It is covered with this black…

Well, the greatest nightmare, with this storm approaching, is that it takes this oil on the surface of the Gulf and blows it over the barrier islands into the bays and the estuaries.

No. And saying something like that, what, are you going to reduce it from 10 days lost to seven days? You're still going to have 420,000 barrels have gushed unobstructed into the Gulf.

The Incident Command has known that they have Navy skimmers in ports, over 40 around the country. But only six have been requested.