Bill Nelson

Please keep your eye on Haiti.

The fact that that Global Initiative has done such good things all over the world... is a significant accomplishment.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, one more question, if I may.

Well, what would be the difference between- let's say that we took a certain amount of the exemption...

Basically you said in response to the Chairman that in order to reduce the cost of Medicare over time so that the Federal Government can afford it, we are basically going to have to do significant improvements, No. 1, in the efficiency of…

The real estate market has dropped like a rock, and, therefore, a person's home is worth a lot less than a mortgage being underwater that much.

I would think that that would be a very important message for you to get out to all of these supervisors, that we ought to all be in the harness pulling in the same direction.

What do you do to control the regulators so that they are not working at cross purposes with what we are trying to do to restore the economy?

I want you all to be mindful of the balance of issues.

I have no objection to offshore drilling if it is done responsibly and if it is done where the oil companies already have leases.

It is the previous administration, so you are going to just plead the Fifth, then.

I was surprised at the degree of criticism that you received from a number of the talking heads on TV this morning.

Either guarantees or buying them up and injection of capital into the banks.

So the newly confirmed Secretary of the Treasury is basically--it looks like he is going to have to take this course.

Wouldn't that then necessitate having the savings and loan approach that we had, go in and buy up those bad assets and hold them then until the price came back up?

Look backward and tell me with the problem having been to begin with the bad mortgages that were securitized and sold throughout the financial system, if our first response had been let us send this money in there to buy up these toxic…

Yes, it was when all this stuff started.

Let me go back a few weeks ago when we were told--we were all on a conference call on our Democratic Caucus with Paulson and Bernanke.

Was that accurate? They said there could be unless we signaled that we were going to do something, which we did.

And the problem is, the collapse of Chrysler, which I voted on years ago as a young Congressman, we had a Lee Iacocca who offered some leadership.

There are no Lee Iacoccas today. As a matter of fact, the way that they have conducted themselves over the years makes me doubt anything that they are saying.

I really don't know that that is true.

What the Senator didn't say is that this puts a State's veto power over the U.S. Government as to its security arrangements in restricted areas off the coast which you never want to put at stake. What the Senator also didn't tell you is…

Would the Senator recognize that the area in yellow there on the west coast of Florida that he indicates for future drilling--would he recognize almost that entire area is the largest testing and training area for the U.S. military in the…