Tom Harkin

Thank you very much, Mr. Cortines.

We are still about $5.7 billion short in the Pell Grant program.

We are going to do everything we can, and I am going to ask for your help and the President's help in getting this done.

We must act soon. We must act soon.

That is why later today I will introduce a bill--the Keep Our Educators Working Act.

I can't think of a more important thing to do in the immediate timeframe than that.

I'm hopeful that sometime soon the Congress will be able to appropriate some money for summer youth employment.

I tend to lean more toward looking at child labor, because they have no one to stick up for them.

Believe me, I've been in a lot of these countries, I've looked at this--what they are doing, and I can't think of anything that gives a better face for America and what we're about in the world than trying to ensure that children are…

I think, it's just one of the good things that our Nation does, is to forcefully go out and work with International Labor Organization and the International Program for the Elimination of Child Labor (IPEC).

I have to go to the White House for the signing of the healthcare bill.

I have a great picture of us throwing shovels of dirt in the air at the Job Corps Center.

I look forward to continuing to work with you.

The worker protection measures that you have talked about are heartwarming. It's about time that we recognize what has happened in the past.

I am committed to achieving the goal of Good Jobs for Everyone, and I look forward to working with the members of this subcommittee to make that vision a reality.

Thanks to President Obama and to the team he has around him, including you, and thanks to actions taken by Congress in the recovery bill, it seems that the economy is stabilizing.

I might point out I have my Franklin Roosevelt tie on today, as a reminder of what we are about to witness, and the momentous occasion that's going to take place this morning with President Obama signing the healthcare bill into law.

That's very reassuring.

Pfizer just paid $2.3 billion, the largest settlement in United States history.

So a lot of times we think about Medicare fraud and abuse, waste, you know you think well, there's somebody out there, some person out there that's putting in for something that they shouldn't get.

That's pretty serious. And it costs a lot of money.

I suggested, modestly, a year or two ago that perhaps what we ought to do on the Federal level is provide a free flu shot to every person in the country every year.

Thank you very much. And I just personally want to thank you, Senator Reed, for your leadership in this area.

I'm wondering about that 6-month gap.

So we have to make sure that the quality of early childhood programs is consistently high.