I hope they toss and turn all night tonight and wake up tomorrow with a smile and determination on their face to do something right for America, to make sure they will have a good night's sleep Saturday night because they have been able to…

This is the reality: The Appropriations subcommittees--each and every subcommittee of that full committee--met with Democrats and Republicans and prepared a bill. I have the Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government…

I wish to ask the majority leader, does he recall the time I returned from the Appropriations Committee and said Senator McConnell had come to the committee and said he was going to establish the maximum amount that he would vote for in…

I think it was the right vote to deal with our deficit and the problems we face. The total amount being spent there was $1.108 trillion. The amount of that bill that was earmarked for specific projects was less than 1 percent of that--$8…

before the Senate at this moment is the New START treaty, an agreement between the United States and Russia. This is an effort to try to make this a safer world, to make certain that the nuclear weapons that are in this world are carefully…

As a former member of the Appropriations Committee, is the Senator aware of the process in that committee, a bipartisan process where the ranking Republican member and the Democratic chairman of each subcommittee sit down to literally have…

last night I was on a conference call. It was an unusual one. There were 8,000 people on this conference call. I have never been on a conference call like that. They were from all across the United States of America. We spoke for a few…

first let me commend my colleague from New Mexico, Senator Thomas Udall, for a thoughtful presentation on a challenge we face as Americans regardless of political affiliation. It is thoughtful in that he reflected not only on our mission…

If I might follow up, didn't we ask the GAO to do a study, or the Department of Defense to do a study about GI bill benefits and how much we were actually spending through the GI bill for education through the for-profit schools compared…

Isn't the bottom line that we want to make sure that, first, schools are accredited, so when they hold themselves out to offer a training program, certificate, degree, they, in fact, are doing that; second, to make sure they are charging a…

You cannot escape the reaction of the for-profit school industry. They are buying full-page ads in every newspaper they can get their hands on, claiming we are, by this investigation, trying to deny an opportunity for education for…

I have listened carefully to the remarks of the Senator from Nevada, and I respect him, although I must disagree with him on several particulars. When I look back at history, I see it differently. What I see is a Great Depression facing…

I want to join my colleagues in wishing our friend, Senator Judd Gregg, the best of luck as he prepares for his new life beyond the U.S. Senate. I don't think it is any exaggeration to say that, without the leadership and dogged insistence…

So for every dollar we spent through the Department of Defense to help veterans in the GI bill, if they went to a for-profit school, they were being charged three times what public schools were charging.

And the numbers we found show that, for example, four of the five biggest schools receiving the most post-9/11 GI bill funding have at least one campus with a student loan default rate above 24 percent over 3 years. In comparison--and I…

I wish to ask the Senator, most people say businesses ought to have their opportunity to make a profit. That is what America is all about. What percentage of the revenues at, say, the University of Phoenix come from Federal taxpayers?

It seems to me, at a time of great national deficits, when we do care about our veterans, this is an unexplainable, indefensible situation. I thank the Senator from Iowa for his hearings on this matter. I ask him: At this point, where do…

So more and more students are being charged higher tuition, going deeper in debt, and defaulting at a rate of 3 to 1, being charged three times as much, defaulting three times as much as those who are attending public schools?

I join my colleagues in honoring the service of Senator Byron Dorgan. Over his nearly 30 years in Congress, Senator Dorgan has been a strong and dedicated advocate for the people of the State of North Dakota. Senator Dorgan's long career…

10 years ago, I received a telephone call in my Chicago office that I have recounted on this floor many times. But it started me on a journey that resulted in where we stand today on the passage of the DREAM Act. It was a phone call from a…

I introduced this bill 10 years ago. What I am attempting to do in this bill is to try to resolve an item of great injustice in America. All across this country are young boys and girls, young men and women who came to this country with…

On April 10, 2010, as word spread of the tragic plane crash that killed President Lech Kaczynski, First Lady Maria Kaczynski, and scores of other Polish patriots, Poles gathered by the thousands outside St. John's Church in Warsaw…

It was not an easy vote to vote in favor of the deficit commission report, but I felt it was the right vote. To explain my vote, 40 cents out of every $1 we spend, whether it is for a new missile system at the Pentagon or food stamps for…

I noted last week that President Obama took a surprise trip to Afghanistan and visited with our troops, and it was heartwarming to see the reception our Commander in Chief received in Afghanistan. I looked out at that large crowd of young…

The point I am trying to make is--and he made it so well--that 10 months' work to find $4 trillion that we could reduce from the deficit would be wiped out by the insistence on the other side of continuing these Bush tax cuts indefinitely…