Jeff Merkley

America should be in the leadership in taking on this challenge.

This conversation is much broader than your background.

The challenge is just as large. Can you give a little bit of thought to this?

EDA grants have been very significant to Portland's smaller communities, some of our rural communities.

If we do not make things in America, we will not have a middle class.

I want to turn next to NOAA's Pacific Coastal Salmon Recovery Fund. This is a fund that has been essential to my State and much of the Northwest that have significant salmon runs because it is such a challenge restoring streams, habitat…

I hope you will understand that spending in the Tax Code is very much spending

The tax expenditures very much impact the deficits in the budget and the allocation of resources

Thank you. Too-big-to-jail is wrong under our Constitution. It promises equality under the law. Let's send a strong message by supporting this. I thank my Republican sponsors, Senators Grassley, Heller, Cornyn, and Shelby; and Democrats…

There will be six votes at 11 a.m., and the budget vote- arama is expected to begin at approximately 3 p.m. ____________________

If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate stand adjourned under the previous order. There being no objection, the Senate, at 10:56 p.m., adjourned until Friday, March 22, 2013, at 9…

It is a commitment our Federal Government made to rural forest counties when it determined that it would put environmental overlays over large blocks of forest land that were dedicated to timber production with revenue then shared with…

DOL lacks authority to issue any regulations for the H-2B program

Just take my remarks as an encouragement that something so important to the economy deserves to be near the top of the list.

I can tell you I am hearing nothing but praise back home from veterans' groups and senior groups for the type of work that you are doing.

So how can something so important to the economy, so important to the success of small business, with folks on both sides of the aisle saying that small businesses really create jobs in America, how is it possible the SEC does not even…

We should not be measuring the success of the American economy, if you will, simply by GDP but by how many families have living-wage jobs and how many families have the financial foundations to have a quality life.

I want to ask a specific question about the way that wire transfers are utilized in money laundering.

How can anyone believe that there is justice, that if you take $100,000 you only get charged 10 percent of it?

I do not find that 1 percent of their profits over the time period of this conduct really sends a chilling message that this is unacceptable.

How do we explain that that is a system of justice in the United States of America?

It does certainly say to us we are a long ways from getting there if we are that concerned about any form of shakiness in these large banks.

If I spend $5,000 on affordable housing on a tax credit, and I spend $5,000 that I appropriate, isn't it basically the same $5,000?

Doesn't it make sense for us to shut down some of these loopholes and basically protect programs that support core services to the middle class?

There is a lot more spending than that on tax loopholes.