Chuck Schumer

Ultimately this is about what we are going to do for the American people.

I say we cannot afford not to do it.

Building infrastructure does not come on the cheap.

I am delighted to endorse Mr. Lew's nomination to serve as the next Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

This is an amazingly bipartisan Committee.

I hope you will be able to work with the Commission, if that is appropriate, but certainly to work with us as we respond to the Commission's recommendations.

To not act is unjustifiable. It costs American jobs.

You laid out the policy China has, which is mercantilism, not free trade.

So help us change the law.

The only progress I think we feel we have made is now everyone admits it is a problem, you do and everyone else, but no one does anything about it.

I think it would make a difference.

Our legislation would give you strength, and I would bet my bottom dollar if this legislation passed and you talked to them, you would find a lot more changes than just talking to them without any--by going into them disarmed, which you…

It is clearly time for a change in strategy. It is time to move beyond just the talking that we have heard and action, serious action.

China does basically whatever it wants while we grow weaker and they grow stronger.

We want to make sure this is a priority in every jurisdiction around the country.

I would like to take this opportunity, and I think I speak on behalf of all of our colleagues, certainly in sentiment if not my exact words, about our friend and former colleague, Ted Stevens. On Tuesday we were all deeply saddened to…

The bottom line is this. I like the H-1B program, and I think it does a lot of good for a lot of American companies. In fact, in the immigration proposal I made, along with Senator Reid and Senator Menendez, as well as the outline with…

There really ought to be zero tolerance for that.

The Government of the United States of America ought to serve the United States of America.

My gosh, are we ever slow learners.

So it wouldn't seem, to me at least--and I am wondering about your opinion--to be an unfair conclusion that what is going on is not a dispute about which amendments or how many amendments, even the subjects of the amendments, but that they…

Is it not true as well that as chair of the committee, you have offered them every opportunity and all kinds of amendments and all kinds of compromises in the committee before we got to the floor and now on the floor?

Isn't it true that yesterday or a day or so ago, when we did the Citizens United bill, the minority leader was complaining that the leadership was getting off the subject of small business to go to some other subject? It would seem now, at…

They were not an attempt to improve, modify or help small business but were to simply get us off the subject?

Is it not true that many of the amendments the other side wanted to offer had nothing to do with small business whatsoever?