Jon Tester

A former chairman of this Committee, Byron Dorgan, always felt that it was important that the Department do their job of recognition...

The only entity that doesn't recognize Little Shell is the Federal Government.

We need to keep working at this, get the process streamlined so things can happen in a positive way.

I think it is very important for community banks, credit unions, and smaller institutions to actually have access to credit across the board.

The ability of smaller institutions, community-based institutions, to provide their customers with competitive pricing and product offerings relies significantly on their ability to access the secondary market.

I want to talk a little bit about the role of community-based institutions and servicing and how critical it is to get these institutions to be able to continue to service mortgages.

I can't help but think that these folks are back there shaking their heads and saying: We have no confidence in what Congress is doing.

And I might add it could not happen at a worse time. We have seen the economy rebound, and it is starting to head in the right direction. We have an opportunity to have more growth. We have an opportunity to get some manufacturing back in…

That is exactly correct. I think everybody on the floor right now--and there are a lot of other folks--would love to sit down and figure out ways to get the debt and deficit under control. As Tony James said, you don't do it by holding a…

Absolutely. It could have such a negative impact on the GDP that we could have a negative fourth quarter if this crazy talk keeps going.

I am talking about the majority in this body needs to speak up and stop this kind of craziness.

I do not think there is anybody particularly proud of where we are at debt-wise in this country, whether you are Democrat or Republican.

I am. Every one of them said they ought to quit messing around, get to an agreement, have the debates on debt and deficit we need to have, because they are important, but don't hold up the debt limit and don't hold up the government…

My last point would be this. If we are going to get the debt and deficit under control, one of the things we have to do is grow the economy. By stopping government with this continuing resolution, by talking, simply talking about…

We know those folks are important to my office. If they were not important to my office, they would not be working for me. They tell folks what is going on, help constituents when they have problems with some of the agencies around. But…

Why don't we have them come back? We know the value of work to their self-esteem.

Absolutely. And we should debate them later. But the bottom line is it is important that we keep our government open. Why? Because we are wasting a ton of money the way it is being done now, and this piecemeal funding, trying to get a…

It is. It is a much lower number. I will tell the good Senator from Alaska this: That is what happened in the negotiations. The upshot of all that is that we would get a clean CR coming back if we would negotiate it back down to that…

Yes. MR. BEGICH. The Senator had at the beginning some good numbers there. If I do the math right, when the Senator from Oregon was here and from what I saw, we hear over and over there are not negotiations or compromise going on. But if I…

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent it adjourn under the previous order. There being no objection, the Senate, at 7:01 p.m., adjourned until Friday, September 27, 2013, at 9:30 a.m.

There will be up to four rollcall votes at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow. ____________________

I hope that we can get you guys through the process as quickly as possible.

I think it says a lot about you and it says a lot about the employees that work in the agency.

I do not think your personalities indicate that at all.

I want to know what the impact is going to be on them, positive, negative.