Al Franken

When I travel around Minnesota and I talk to business owners, everywhere I go they tell me that they have jobs they want to fill, but they can't find people to fill them because they can't find workers with the right skills.

The technical training is exactly what I am talking about in terms of these community and technical colleges working with businesses.

I believe the government must give proper weight to both keeping Americans safe from terrorists and protecting Americans' privacy.

I just hate to see us in the so-called interest of paying down our deficit and our debt actually hurting ourselves and hurting people at the same time.

I rise to talk about Medicare solvency. I know that to many people the words ``Medicare solvency,'' which is the ability of the Medicare program to meet its financial obligations, sounds like an invitation to a nice nap. You and I pay into…

I believe that the government can and should provide that information, again, in a way that does not compromise our security.

What this bill would do is allow States to develop a Home Care Consumer Bill of Rights exactly like we have in Minnesota to protect seniors from abuse and neglect and exploitation.

I championed a program in the health care law called the National Diabetes Prevention Program, which is a targeted intervention that's been proven to reduce the chances that a person with pre-diabetes will develop full diabetes by nearly…

We are all concerned about the claims backlog, and VA is working hard to address it.

We need water for farming, for healthy ecosystems and we need it for energy production.

To make ourselves resilient to drought we need to monitor our ground water resources.

The largest wholesale supplier in the Nation is the Department of the Interior. You have to be a leader in sustainable management.

I just held my grandson in my arms when he was--a couple days ago and told him that no one expects him to know anything.

I think this is just a--we're talking about where we're spending money.

Could you talk a little bit about the impact that sequestration would have on your ability to fight fires?

I would like to thank them both.

I would like to associate myself with the wise words of my colleague from Missouri, whose State has experienced so much tragedy last year much like the devastation in Oklahoma. On behalf of the State of Minnesota, our hearts and thoughts…

Repeatedly S&P promised that its ratings would be objective and independent even though the banks and other institutions hired S&P to rate these financial products.

I believe accountability is appropriate. I also believe that we need to change the model by which the credit rating agency is chosen by the issuer of the product and also paid by them.

I have heard from a lot of Minnesotans who support the proposal regardless of their views on other aspects of the President's gun violence prevention initiative.

Under current law, someone who cannot pass a background check to buy a gun simply can go to a gun show or to classified ads and get a gun anyway.

The Manchin-Toomey amendment would expand the background check system to cover commercial guns sales.

But in the end, at some point, the majority must be enabled to act.

Susie is a school bus driver from Elk River, MN. She was terminated because her employer wanted to 'get rid of' employees who previously tried to organize a union.

However, the lack of a full board and the D.C. Circuit's Noel Canning decision has hampered the Board's ability to protect these rights.