John Sarbanes

I thank Chairman Shelby for his leadership on this issue. I look forward to working with the Senator on developing a hearing at which the Banking Committee will receive testimony on credit care disclosures and other practices. A number of…

Then the Commissioner of Internal Revenue is required to give them access to the Internal Revenue Service facility and access to any tax returns or return information contained therein. So they, in effect, have a carte blanche to gain…

He inherited a very strong economy in terms of the number of people who were working. And participation in the labor force was up very high. We broke records in terms of job production in the 1990s in the number of people we put to work.

The concern is that these job figures are coming down like this. It seems to me that the Senator has to face the fact that this is where the job figures have been trending over the last 6 months.

The Senator has to go back to March of this year to get the kind of job figures he is talking about.

It is unparalleled in coming out of a recession that so much of the growth is going to profits and so little of the growth is going to wages. It is a stark contrast with what occurred as we tried to move out of previous recessions in the…

I rise today to continue that tradition and recognize May as ``Older Americans Month.''... I have significant concerns about what the future holds in this regard. I voted against the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of…

The Senator is right to focus on the inadequacy of demand. If he would put up the chart that shows how much of the benefit goes to workers' wages as opposed to corporate profit in this so-called recovery, we can see that if you go back to…

You can see the effect on the earnings of workers that is taking place in the economy, for one thing.

It is pretty brutal treatment, it seems to me, to people who have suffered real harm. But for people to have worked their way through the system with all of the stress and strain involved in doing that, and to have either come up to the…

The other question I wanted to put, do I understand the proposal that has now been brought--sprung to the floor, so to speak, because I don't know that it represents the culmination of any consultative process--for people who have been…

Do I understand after repeated efforts to hold, I take it, a thorough and comprehensive meeting with Senator Frist, which was to discuss this matter, when the time for the meeting had arrived-- which had been delayed, I gather…

Those are huge sums we are borrowing from these various nations in order to cover our deficit. This is debt they hold which the United States has to pay back. The fact is, if you connect everything, what is happening in effect is, in order…

I also understand when they try to put it in percentage terms as a share of the economy, that it is almost at the highest level it has been since the end of World War II. Of course, we had to fight World War II. We had a significant…

This amendment would fully fund the assistance to firefighter programs, the firefighter grant, and the SAFER program up to the authorized amount. I urge my colleagues stand with our firefighters. Warren Rudman, in a report, said…

Furthermore, the Senator says if we are going to get this money, $2.8 billion, you would have to--then he mentions all kinds of possibilities on the tax side. Obviously, we can't direct specific instructions to the tax committee, but we…

Is that the same administration official, high economic official, who told us in the annual report, the one President Bush signed off on, that outsourcing jobs was a good thing for America?

What problem would it cause if we were to offer the amendment after the votes and maybe even discuss it for a few minutes?

What that says is he could fund No Child Left Behind and he would still have $36 billion left of the tax cut; is that right?

Does that chart mean if one-third of the tax cuts that are being proposed to be made permanent, if only one-third of them remain not made permanent, that would more than cover the shortfall in Social Security?

In other words, a third of the Nation's retirees get at least 90 percent of their income from Social Security, another third get from between 50 and 90 percent of their income from Social Security. It demonstrates how dependent retired…

It is interesting. If you deal with the first year of the 10-year period, it is $23 billion, as I understand it. But you can't assume, well, we will just project that out at $23 billion a year, each year. So the cost over 10 years would be…

You are telling me it is real money. Absolutely. The Senator is absolutely right. This budget is kind of you see this, but you do not see what is behind the scenes, what is coming. We cut off the picture and look at a certain point. It…

You see it runs along here like this. This is as far as the chairman's budget projects it, right to there. Then it stays on that line a little bit and then look what happens to it--it is incredible. It is the shooting star deficit, the way…

I will close by saying, as these letters demonstrate, the legislation we are considering today is vitally important to keep America moving forward in the 21st century. It is no exaggeration to say this is essential legislation for the…