I do not see how that is defensible, and we are going to continue to have that conversation.

I will just take this opportunity to again call on the Obama administration to please try to set a goal...

I am not an education expert. I was a prosecutor.

the debt and the deficit is in practice much less important than protecting carried interest, much less important than maintaining Cayman Islands offshore shelters, and much less important than keeping big oil subsidies rolling.

We have not addressed that yet. And I would like to ask the witnesses: Do we need to address the $1.8 trillion going out the back door of the Tax Code?

The education oversight establishment as a collective creature has become so burdensome that it is now interfering with classroom teachers' ability to manage their classrooms.

I think we could get a lot done on the debt and the deficit if it was not more important to protect the carried interest loophole, to protect the big oil subsidies, and to protect offshoring in the Cayman Islands.

I would hazard the thought that working well together and having the proper administrative structure are two different questions.

What concerns me is that that passion and that militancy and that determination evaporates as soon as you are talking about benefits that go out to wealthy folks and to corporations through the Tax Code.

What concerns me is that the administration has never set a goal, it has never set a target...

I urge you guys to improve your game on that, and if you are getting pushback from the intelligence communities and from the State Department and other people, push back harder, because I think an indictment has a clarifying effect.

I think for the President to set a hard goal would add a lot of focus to the effort that is underway.

I hope that you keep in your heart, as you go about your job, these teachers and these local school administrators who are feeling stifled and frustrated by this compliance-driven regime that they are forced to live in.

I think is a sad commentary on politics in Washington.

So there is an immediate value to spending in either direction in terms of economic recovery, but the long-term value is for the spending that is on infrastructure that creates a lasting asset.

One of the ways that I find I can help at home is to help support infrastructure projects, particularly since we have a national infrastructure deficit in a great number of areas--highways, water facilities, so forth.

I hope that for folks who are watching this is really seen as an object lesson as to the vulnerability that we all have to a whole variety of Internet penetrations.

I think that we are a long way from having a clear sense of what our cyber law enforcement structure should look like.

when the economy gets trashed, because of the Great Recession, because Wall Street looted the economy, because of unbelievable tax favoritism in the Tax Code, and as a result of those very painful countrywide phenomena that we saw…

I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered…

I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m., on Thursday, January 30, 2014; that following the prayer and pledge, the morning hour be deemed expired, the Journal of proceedings be…

if there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order. There being no objection, the Senate, at 6:24 p.m., adjourned until Thursday, January 30, 2014, at 10 a.m.

I am advised to inform my colleagues that there will be up to four rollcall votes beginning at 11:15 a.m. tomorrow in order to complete action on the flood insurance bill. The vote on final passage of the bill will occur at approximately 2…

I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of Calendar No. 282, S. 1417. The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title. The assistant legislative clerk read as follows: A bill (S. 1417)…

I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be set aside so I may call up amendment No. 2706. The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered. The clerk will report. The legislative clerk read as follows: The Senator from…