It is time that this Senate and Congress moved a third jobs bill with a focus on small business in America. My call to the Senators this morning is to get our eyes off of Wall Street and onto Main Street.

If we are serious about creating jobs, then our focus, our effort, our work should be for the millions of small businesses out there that with just a little bit of tweaking, a little bit of help from an export initiative here, some…

Of particular interest to me and the state of Louisiana is the CPSC's ongoing investigation into defective drywall made in the People's Republic of China.

I join my colleague in supporting this amendment. We have modified it from the original version. No environmental laws will be ignored. The process will be followed. But this amendment would simply expedite getting money to the Gulf Coast…

In the law--and this is mentioned in the testimony--if a child is 14 or older, they have to give their consent for adoption.

Do you know what the average casework ratio is?

But the key is this: Every child coming to that program has to sign and the program has to meet an adult that is a responsible friend or advocate for that child.

Yes, the whole city had great therapy that weekend that the Saints won...

I am working closely with Senator Grassley on this--to have basically the funding track the child...

We are not anywhere where we need to be, but there are new Federal laws that are incentivizing that kind of mentorship.

I do not want to dwell too much on this, but when I said does the District know how it ranks according to other States...

I cannot impress upon you how important I think that is because people today, they just simply function on the Internet.

I know this is difficult, but many of the foster care children that I have gotten to know complain bitterly that every time they look up, there is a new person trying to help their situation.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your thoughtful opening statement on this subject...

It is not pocket change. And if that money followed the child and the best decisions of the professionals...

It is a real barrier, and everyone listening should know.

I am extremely impressed with your general compassion on this issue and your attention to it.

I went on the Website this morning, and I have to say, unfortunately, I was disappointed in what I saw.

Well, I am going to push it even further for a certain age for the children to go to the school that they would like to go to and give them a lot more power to--if even the system is dysfunctional, a lot of these children can make very…

But when you order them to do it, they say they do not have the resources to do it, or no?

Well, we are going to work harder to fix this because there are thousands of children, maybe not as articulate and as smart as you, but there are thousands of children that are in this same situation.

We have to do a much better job of trying to help the children that are in the system to stay at least in their school.

Well, it is really good to hear that because the best practice models that are developing are all focused in that way to try to have the most consistency for these young people who have already enough disruption, in large measure no fault…

we need $300 million a year just to finish these 18 projects

I think this subcommittee is going to be shocked when the numbers come in, about what our communities are going to have to either step up or pay in money that they don't have or pay in additional insurance premiums to get flood insurance…