Ben Cardin

The government's reaction was brutal, and its subsequent actions can only be interpreted as a campaign to crush the opposition.

We should be thanking him and all that are with him for literally risking their lives.

The enemy is Lukashenko, and he is the enemy not just to the European Union and the United States.

But what happened the night after the election is what brought us to the point where we are today.

I would like to point out that under Assistant Secretary Gordon's direction, five men and women--count them--five diplomats--led by Mr. Scanlan are working around the clock.

The government did allow the monitoring mission and allowed nine opposition candidates to register and to run against President Lukashenka.

People demonstrate in democracies and life goes on.

Tough talk is not good enough. There have to be major consequences for what happened.

Neutrality in the case of Belarusian politics is an enemy of freedom and we cannot continue.

We, in the Department's Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, are proud to be part of America's diplomacy in this case.

They threw them in jail.

Without a doubt, road projects create important domestic jobs that need to be restored to our economy.

Let us not be afraid to look at alternative ways that can save money, create jobs, and then have more dollars available for the expensive projects that we know we need to build, such as high speed rail.

This must be a top priority for EPW, Senate Banking and Commerce Committees, and for Congress on the whole.

Improving the overall functionality of our complete transportation system is what it means to improve the 'livability' of our communities.

I strongly agree with the consensus here that we need to get a surface transportation reauthorization enacted, it needs to be long-term, it needs to speak to the investments that are necessary and it needs to be adequately funded.

Fast and efficient intermodal transportation systems, both figuratively and literally, drive our nation's economy.

I think every dollar that we authorize has to be spent efficiently and appropriately for transportation in this Country.

Secretary Gates shares the importance and the attention that is needed for gender equality.

In order to have successful efforts for increasing capacity of other countries, there needs to be a priority on gender equality.

I think it was terribly irresponsible for the Senate to take up that resolution.

The argument I hear the most against consumption taxes is progressivity, but we can make a consumption tax progressive, and we have ways of doing it.

My concern is that if we were to pass the recommendations of the Commission, it is unlikely that that would stand for very long before Congress would once again, for reasons of political expediency, use the Tax Code rather than the revenue…

We want the best policy objectives. Future Congresses are going to act regardless of what we do in this Congress on these recommendations.

We are certainly realistic to know that your proposals are going to be politically controversial wherever you went.