Mary Landrieu

I do agree with Senator Snowe, although we disagree about other aspects of the bill before us, that giving some long-term stability and relief in the tax code is important.

If we matched the recovery during the Reagan years, we would have had approximately 16 million jobs created.

It requires a sense of urgency in addressing those issues.

We are facing the worst post-recession recovery in the history of our country.

The bottom line is this: All Small Business Lending Fund banks, whether they receive TARP or not, must increase loans to small business to keep their rates low.

It is important to note, however, Treasury estimates that $4 billion invested in community banks will lead to small business lending ranging from $9 billion to $16 billion over the next two years.

We want to help them to get back up, not only because it is the right thing to do, but economically, it is the smart thing to do.

I am proud that the Senate adopted a $6.9 billion disaster recovery that included all of your agencies.

I think it is going to be extremely difficult even with the array of other programs.

But to have programs that people have hope for and not fund them I think is the cruelest of all.

I think, unfortunately, we have developed a habit and a pattern of underbudgeting for emergencies that we absolutely know, based on historical records, are going to occur.

So it is a $3 billion backlog?

We are lending people money at 6 percent and 7 percent. We call that a low-interest loan.

I commit to work with the Senator of Vermont to make this business loan program the very best that it can possibly be.

I am going to ask you if $100 million is enough, and how many people you have had to tell no to when you ran out of that money.

Can you please give me an update--not now, but in writing, please--about this project?

And I think the Senator from Mississippi is absolutely correct.

Somebody needs to respond to this situation.

It would seem to me that setting aside some emergency money for the Corps would be a wise way to operate.

I think that is what Senator Cochran, Senator Blunt, I, and others are saying, that after this historic flood, we need to take an assessment.

I want the record to show that the Federal Government responded significantly after that flood of 1927.

Thank you, Senator Lautenberg, for those excellent remarks and questions.

I think it would be very helpful for this subcommittee, and I know this is difficult, but you have in your staff a lot of experience.

If we had a major earthquake?

So the bottom line is, when we fail to provide the adequate money to the DRF, you sometimes have to stop projects that are not easily restarted in some States, depending on their weather patterns, winter, et cetera?