I do appreciate the effort that is being made by the Senator from Louisiana to assist small businesses around this country. Frankly, there are many provisions in this bill I think people on both sides agree with. I have, as a member of the…

Madam President, how much time is left of our allotment? The PRESIDING OFFICER. Eight minutes 8 seconds.

Thank you, Madam President. I thank the Senator from Alabama for his eloquent remarks as a key member and the ranking Republican member of the Banking Committee, as someone who is very knowledgeable of the impacts these decisions we make…

Mr. President, to the Senator's point about this perhaps acting as an encouragement for lenders to get money out the door quickly, perhaps with assuming more risk than perhaps they should, I wish to point out, again--and because I am…

I hope we will defeat this today because there is moral hazard associated with it. We want to do the right thing by small businesses. I have named several things small businesses are concerned about--cap and trade, more government…

I say to my neighbor from Wyoming, he understands his constituents very well, and we share a border, but we also share a lot of other things, including a common set of values and a sense of individual responsibility and belief in freedom…

Madam President, if the Senator from Arizona will yield, just to put a final point on that, again, 454 days before the administration put forward this nominee, there have been 79 days since, and they are blaming Republicans for holding up…

The Senator from Wyoming knows full well how difficult it is to deliver health care in rural areas. Being a physician himself, he knows the challenges we face. It seems to me that notwithstanding the comments to the contrary, we have to…

I would say to my friend from Arizona and to the leader that a cynic might also raise the issue of why it took the President 454 days to nominate Donald Berwick and then have a lot of his surrogates go on in front of the media and say: We…

Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I offered an amendment a week ago during the debate on the extenders legislation that is still on the floor of the Senate that would have paid for all the things the Senator from Michigan would…

Mr. President, I would like to speak to the amendment I just proffered to the other side which was objected to. I think there is a consensus in the Senate that we need to fix some of these problems we are facing, one of which is the…

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 4853; that all after the enacting clause be stricken and the text of the Thune amendment 4376 be inserted; that the bill, as amended, be…