James Lankford

The $1 million for tribes was just too high.

For a tribe to make a disaster declaration, it is $250,000 worth of damage.

As a non-reservation State, there is a tremendous amount of area that is historic tribal area.

I would tell you as well Senator McCaskill and I have worked for the past couple of years on something called the 'Taxpayer's Right to Know.'

I would hope that we could also work together on all the budget gimmicks that are out there.

I had mentioned to you when we visited in the office that my fear is that the cost-benefit analysis from any Administration has become a justification...

That model does not seem to exist.

Your new Democratic colleague in the Senate, Senator Tammy Duckworth, from Illinois, also introduced a version of that legislation.

If you add additional requirements, you are welcome to, but this is the minimum standard.

Washington, D.C., is not the real world.

At some point, this looked rational to someone in D.C.? But it does not look rational to anyone else.

Is there a need to get some sort of definition and to get some sort of clarity on those?

I do fear that at times agencies do believe, 'I posted that in the Federal Register. Every small business in America should have seen it.'

All of them have their own silo. All of them have their own requirement to be able to check things off.

A healthy workforce is a stable workforce, and a stable workforce is going to continue to produce.

Unfortunately, the views of the Office of Advocacy have been ignored more often than not.

Giving them the chance, letting them know that it is not going to be a 'gotcha' game.

We have to give our country's small businesses a break. They need relief.

Until we actually in the Federal Government sit down and have a conversation with our counterparts in State and local government, we will not tackle the problem of overregulation.

It is fascinating to me, the number of times that I will talk to an agency, and they will tell me, 'This does not affect a small business because this is only a regulation that was designed for larger businesses.'

It does not have the authority to write governmentwide rules to define those terms.

In my view, the only way to ensure that the Federal Government... stops beating up on small businesses... is to enact meaningful regulatory reform.

Government, get out of the way.

It is great to see the Chairman here, Chairman Risch, but I also have a statement from the Ranking Member of Small Business, Jeanne Shaheen, and would ask that that be submitted for the record.

Despite the importance of this sector for our economy, small business owners continually tell me they do not feel that Washington hears their voice.