This has been a rough couple of months for the president particularly in the issues of Iraq.

I first and foremost thank Senator Gregg and Senator Kennedy for their willingness to work with me on this amendment. This is an amendment that comes from the many visits I had in public schools across Pennsylvania where I heard from…

I object to that modification because what the Senator from South Dakota has just said is, no, I will not let the bill go to conference. That is what sending the bill back to the House means, which means, no; no conference. As we all…

We have agreed to votes on all three of those amendments, in exchange for votes on two things we would like to do; that is, pass a welfare reform bill that is actually going to help reduce poverty in America, help stabilize and build…

what the Democratic leader has just suggested is allowing us to vote on welfare reform, but what the Democratic leader has insistently refused to do is to allow that bill to go to conference. Of course, a bill passage means nothing unless…

I think it goes to state the case that the Senator from Massachusetts, in offering these other ideas, is in fact not interested in the Senate working its will on welfare reform, which is the bill before us, but bringing the political…

I look forward to this welfare reform debate. I hope we can have a good and enlightened debate on an issue that is vitally important for millions of Americans and that we keep to the subject of welfare, try to pass this bill, get it to…

I would vote for a minimum wage increase in the next 10 minutes if we could have gotten that agreement. I would have been happy to vote on a side by side, and I would have supported Senator McConnell's amendment, which would have raised…

I want to make the point in the last 10 years, the child poverty rate has declined almost 30 percent. During that time there was one increase in the minimum wage, but there was a dramatic change in welfare. I ask the Senator, does he have…

I also congratulate Senator Frist and Senator McConnell and the Democratic leaders for allowing us to debate this issue. This is an important debate. I think Senator Graham, who I had the privilege of listening to for a few moments…

this is a bill that has been a bipartisan bill. The Senator from South Dakota has mentioned on numerous occasions, and again in this letter, that the concern is--and in the newspaper article--that things have been put in conference that…

what I sent to the desk was a budget as proposed by Senator Kerry. This is a combination of the documentation from the L.A. Times, Washington Post, and other sources, of the proposals he has made with respect to this year's budget. For the…

I did not talk about the deficit starting in the Clinton administration. I am talking about when the recession started.

So what they were doing was reflecting the reality of an economy that was in trouble when they took office. I just want to, again--Senator Conrad is here. I don't want to pick him out as being the only one who was accusing the President…

the Senator from Kentucky makes a very persuasive case about how up is down, right is left, that the other side is doing an incredibly masterful job of trying to spin the economy. I want him to comment on something that has concerned me…

I suggest historically the lesson we learn from the conversation he had with Lloyd Bentsen: Lloyd Bentsen was wrong. The bottom line is there are a lot of other factors that go into the calculation of interest rates other than the deficit…

I will offer an amendment to extend for 2 years the work opportunity and welfare to work tax credits, and to make certain improvements to these programs that will make them even more effective in helping Americans' transition from welfare…

I do not wish to speak on the amendment. I wish to speak on the bill. First, I have great respect for the chairman of the committee and the ranking member. I understand this is one of the toughest jobs we have, trying to draft a highway…

I am please to introduce today, along with my colleague from California, Senator Feinstein, legislation that will further one of the most important public policy goals we have as a Nation--the goal of homeownership. Homeownership is a…

The No. 1 crisis in my State with regard to health care is medical lawsuit abuses.

They have blocked every form of reasonable and balanced litigation reform that balances the interests of those who rightfully have a plea before a court for compensation and the right of society not to have outrageous awards, which make us…

I have seen some of them. In fact, they were revised a couple of months prior to the most recent report--I believe it was August and September--the net new jobs created on the original projection was 16,000. They have revised them up to…

We saw in just the last few quarters the business community--which has really been lagging, and which is an indicator in all of the economy--as a result of the accelerated depreciation expensing provision in the tax package that we passed…

If you look at the last 3 months, almost 300,000 new jobs, net new jobs were created in this economy.

The number keeps coming up about 3 million jobs being lost in this administration since this administration took office. I want to share with you a chart that looks at the survey of the U.S. employment level. This includes everybody. The…