I believe that our country's aid to developing countries will be ineffective if it does not incorporate initiatives to strengthen child welfare systems.

I do want to mention Haiti, and the opportunity that I had to go down to Haiti about a year-and-a-half ago.

I want to express my gratitude for your work as First Lady, Senator, and now as Secretary of State on behalf of children living outside of family care.

I particularly want to be supportive.

The facts are that drilling on public lands are down, and they need to be increased.

Senator Leahy has supported this set-aside in the budget.

We can't drill our way back to $2 or $3 gasoline.

that was a beautiful tribute by my colleague. I come to the floor to just speak for a few minutes while we are trying to figure a way forward on a very important piece of legislation having to do with the transportation infrastructure for…

I think we need to act, and I think we need to do it soon.

We have got to make sure that we are starting out getting to the end.

It is not just making a few investors wealthy. That is not the goal of this Committee.

we cannot rest on our laurels and I guess that is the main point that I wanted to make.

we have to decide whether our bill is going to be focused on just growth so that a small number of people just continue to get wealthier or if it is going to be growth and other things so that we strengthen the middle class.

if half of those businesses hired one more employee, I mean, we would have almost solved the job issue in America.

It is trying to honor that spirit that you just described in the best way possible, expanding the middle class.

you can thank you Senator Carl Levin, who promoted that idea

As the world starts creating a broader middle class, I mean, America can, small businesses, begin selling our products.

If it is just GDP or GPA growth is one thing. If it is growth and job creation, if it is growth, job creation, and expanding the middle class and opening up opportunities, it is something even broader.

We just passed a very significant export bill for small business.

I am not a venture capitalist but I am a policymaker and what I want is a country that is exceedingly wealthy but that everyone shares in it according to their merit and their ability.

We are not going to wait until there is the perfect bill.

it is astounding that there is not much money out there. You know, women owned businesses have zero access to that.

I think our country is very focused broadly on this and they understand the potential that is out there if we get some of this stuff right.

we cannot lose sight of what makes America, I think, essentially a really extraordinary country which are these entrepreneur, small businesses.

So opening up that export, I think, is the right thing to do.