Tom Harkin

Sometimes cheapest is not always the least expensive. Sometimes cheapest can turn out to be the most expensive, depending upon the quality of the work, how long these projects are, and whether they are done on time. He said: I will only…

Finally, I just say, for those of us in Iowa, in a small, rural State, with a lot of midsized hospitals, with a lot of people uninsured--and quite frankly, we are not in the upper echelons of income in the United States--for us this health…

We applaud Chairman Harkin (D-IA) and Ranking Member Enzi (R-WY) for focusing on what can be done to help Americans save more for retirement.

That's why I've always been such a strong supporter of a basic social safety net that is backed by the strength and power of who we are as a nation.

If the United States of America exists, your Social Security will be there for you, because it is the only retirement system backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. Government.

There is no question that it's getting harder and harder for the average person to retire.

Wages have been stagnant for about 20 years, and people are working longer and harder than ever before.

There has to be a way to make saving for retirement simpler.

Automatic enrollment was a good first step.

Over a quarter of workers do not have any meaningful retirement savings at all.

401(k)s often do not provide real retirement security.

I commend the GAO for the time and professionalism they have brought to this project.

The extraordinary delay

Paralysis by analysis

We believed that one of the great crises in this country, and one of the reasons that 45,000 Americans die every single year, is they don't have access to health care

Thanks to health reform Americans now have protections that every Senator on this dais has had for many years.

These protections are a historic, long-awaited improvement in the quality and scope of health coverage for all Americans.

What this debate needs is more light and less heat.

You would think normally that bill would pass and it would go to the President for his signature. It was supported overwhelmingly by the American people, yet thwarted because we have the right--as I said earlier, the minority in the Senate…

Is it the Senator's view that perhaps the way the Senate is constructed right now may in some way--I just throw this out--take away my constitutional right to adequately represent my constituents? If it takes a supermajority or if we…

But I think the better question is, what has a filibuster become, because as the Senator pointed out and as Senator Merkley pointed out, this whole image of someone standing on the floor and speaking until they drop... that is not really a…

I ask my friend from Texas this: In listening to him, I almost have the feeling that my friend from Texas is saying we ought to have a supermajority to pass anything, that we should have 60 votes in order to pass anything.

I think we ought to go through processes in our committees to have hearings on nominees to flush out things such as that. So to that extent, the Senator from Kansas is right. We should not have, especially if there is any controversy at…

Let me point out that when it came to our committee, the HELP Committee, we had 13 days of markup, 54 hours. We allowed any amendment to be offered. The Senator is a member of that committee. We allowed any Senator on our committee to…

Editorialists from across the country have recognized the filibuster must end. The Concord Monitor of New Hampshire called on the Senate to ``Remove the Senate filibuster roadblock,'' noting, ``The filibuster rule has rendered the Senate…