Political Quotes

“Thank you, Madam President. We are now on a very important bill, the small business jobs growth bill. It is a bill that actually many of us on both sides of the aisle--from the Small Business Committee to the Finance Committee, to Members who are not members of either one of those committees--have contributed immensely to the building of a bill that we think holds a great deal of promise for small businesses throughout our country that have been beaten and battered. But amazingly, in many places, these businesses, despite all the odds, are hanging on and they are looking for some help. That is what this bill attempts to do--to build strong partnerships with the private sector, to use the resources that are already out there, most notably, our community banks, our small banks. There are over 8,000 of them. We have not heard a lot about those banks. I see the Senator from Florida in the Chamber who is going to speak in just a minute. We have not heard a lot about community banks on this floor. All we have heard about are Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, AIG. We have heard about Wall Street and big banks. We have not heard about small community banks and small businesses--the 27 million of them that are struggling in America today. This bill finally--finally--has reached the floor of the Senate. The House has already passed a very strong bill.…”