but acorn on the other hand takes public money so look into them. somebody said i've said enough and i'm sure i have. and my guy, adam, says he wants you to ask all the questions you want. >> well, thank you very much for your time this afternoon and for having -- taking the time to answer questions of which there are many. first one, just bringing up your commentary on independence party candidate jesse ventura in his election in 1998. that was an election very much attributed to grassroots mobilization over the internet. the answer group that opposed the iraq war moveon.org, the campaign of howard dean and a lot of the activities of president obama often have been attributed to the new politics of the internet in the ability to mobilize grassroots.

how is your group different from those groups in terms of internet mobilization? and how are they simply not another wave crashing in the partisan shores? >> well, first of all, i think -- certainly there's others who got better use of the internet more quickly than the grassroots small government grassroots activists did. so, one, we are now seeing the small government activists, moveon.org is not a grassroots organization because you know the name of soros and he provides the money. you're trying to figure out who provides the money to us and who's in charge. you're going nuts. who's in charge? and the reason you're going nuts, nobody is in charge. that's what happens when you have grassroots. when you have grassroots nobody is in charge. the democrats' left wing outfit with soros at the top writing all the checks is not grassroots. their operatives who all paid.

whoever showed up acorn without a paycheck? funded by federal money. from the democratic party who needed an auxiliary organization out there. that's not grassroots. grassroots is real people getting out of their homes at their own expense, going to washington on their own terms with their own something to say about leave me alone. that's real grassroots. and it's true there was some use on that. i don't want to be too harsh on jesse ventura, but don't you think he's been acting a little bizarre lately. maybe i'm wrong. he just seems strange to me. that's all. >> what are some of the distractions for which the tea party movement must beware? >> well, i think clearly you have to -- and you're going to mobilize the attention of the voters at large, and that's what you need because in the end, democracies is carried out by office-holders.

you have to stay with the key issues. you stay focused on the big issues. the center stake of the largest tent in american politics today is fiscal responsibility. individual liberty, restraint of big government in defense of liberty. now, that doesn't mean you ignore all other issues but you also handle them in a responsible fashion. and the other thing you have a big tent like this and you have that much diversity and in this tent if you walk among these folks you have christians and libertarians walking hand to hand evangelicals and libertarians we haven't seen that since reagan. you have republicans, you have independents, you have democrats. you have all kinds of philosophical stripes and you have some kooky birds when did the larushers never show up. who are these people?

they're larushers. they're democrats. but you're going to get some folks that are going to come to your big tent and they're going to have their issues that you're not going to be all together comfortable with them. but, in fact, if you're going to have a big tent of diversified tolerance, you just live with that. some people are going to show up that i'm not perfectly happy with. you know how that happens at family reunions. [laughter] >> much of your appeal has come from pocketbook issues such as taxes. at the same time, as you noted issues such as immigration have generated passion in recent years. what role do individuals such as tom tancredo play in the tea party movement? >> the republicans frustrates to tears. who in the republican party was the genius who said that now we have identified the fastest

growing voting demographic in america, let's go out and alienate them. we have serious issues. by the way, virtually no emergency that the government responds to is, in fact, an emergency. government make the impression of emergency so they can prosper. republicans are the only ones that create the impression of emergency by which they can die. the republican party is the most naturally talented party at losing its natural constituents in the history of the world. this party was bourne with the emancipation proclamation that can't get a black vote to save its life. how did they do that? well, the same thing with the hispanics. fix the ins. the biggest problem in immigration in america today is a dysfunctional ins. a rude and a mean ins. the way they treat these folks is unbelievy rude and callous and cruel. fix that agency and make it do its job and make it do its job

in a humane and loving fashion then you can control your borders. the republicans -- when i was a majority leader i saw to it that tom tancredo could not get on the stage because i saw how destructive he was. now, that don't mean you ignore an important issue before the american people but handle it with some sense and some compassion and some sensitivity. this is a nation of immigrants. we're just two days away from st. paddy's day. two days from now do you realize every person in this room is going to pretend they're irish. [laughter] >> trent lott says why don't they do that for the scot because you never hear a scot walk into a bar and say drinks on me. [laughter] >> the fact of the matter is, the hispanic american is the most natural born constituency for the republican party since the black american was in 1965 and these guys are out there

trying to blow it. just do it right. understand the tradition and history and generosity of this great nation. there is room in america. if you love america, if you love freedom, if you love work, if you're willing to pay your taxes and obey the law, you should be welcomed in america. and we should have institutions in america that should make your presence here not only a convenient matter but a pleasant matter. so our problem is, what, the biggest problem in america is a government that doesn't do its government properly and we can attend to the real problems so the real deserving people would like to come here. the republicans have get it right and get off this goofiness that they have. ronald reagan said tear down that wall. tom tancredo says build that wall. who's right, you know? america is not a nation that builds walls. america is a nation that opens doors and we should be there.

>> when the republicans were in power, they tripled earmarks, turned the budget surplus into a deficit and enacted a prescription drug plan without paying it have they hurt their credibility on budget and deficit matters? >> that's the point i'm making. i said that to john boehner who's a true conservative you and a lot of people don't realize that but in 1994 when we had we did the contract in america it was john boehner who wanted to include a ban on earmarks. he got it then and he gets it now. but the fact of the matter is, they went back in office and did a disservice to this country and they offended a lot of their natural voting constituency in doing this. that's why they can't do in my estimation, they can't come back with a second contract with america. you can't offer a contract if you don't have the standing to offer the contract. i say i'm from washington. i'm a republican.

and i got a contract for you and you're going to say, oh, yeah, you want me to fall for that again? that's why the grassroots activist movement has developed and through participation by grassroots activists all over the country, a contract from america which will be unveiled on april 15th at our rally here which most of you will underestimate the number of people there by ten-fold. and then report it -- cut it in half and then report it. but at that rally we will unveil the contract from america. we invite everybody. come and accept the contract. we think they got the ability to stand on the legs to accept the contract while they don't have the ability to stand on legs and offer the contract. we think that there may be one or two democrat office-holders or office holders and will suffer reprisals from their

leaders and be bullied out of it and we don't expect a lot of democrats to accept the contract. i'd love to see what happens. i remember -- remember when -- oh, bless his heart, from texas. help me out our great wonderful dean of the texas delegation. help me out. huh? no, no, no, no. a republican. [inaudible] >> it will come to me tomorrow. it will come to me tomorrow. voted against tip o'neill. and the next day he found his office doors all locked. ralph all who voted against tip o'neill leadership, remember? next day ralph went to his office and the doors were locked. he calls the number 2424, if you're locked out of i don't you are office called 2424. the guy says mr. hall, but the speaker said if you want to get in your office you need to go visit with him. so that democrat that says, gee, i like that contract from

america, i think i'm going to sign up might just -- go to your office the next day, just go directly to speak pelosi's office. save yourself the time. >> chair conyers endorsed senator specter before the party switch minority mitch mcconnell held a fundraiser for trey grayson, do such republican leaders get it? >> this is one of the things i'm kind of tickled by. our grassroots activists -- i have a keen eye. they know what's going on in their communities. and when chris denounced that he was going to run for the senate, all of washington swooned, right. all those across the florida, he will not be elected in florida look at this election scheme and rubio, wasn't he the guy that traveled all over the

state and really talked to people and listened to them? when he wanted to be speaker? i mean, he campaigns like us. so we're going to go with rubio. he can win. he will win. it was our grassroots activists that first said, you know, we got a guy who can win a senate seat in massachusetts and we said oh, get out of here. the republican party said, oh, go on. and they said no, no, he campaigns the way we do. he's out there with an old chevy pickup. i said well, first of all it's not a ford he can't be too bright but still nevertheless, he's doing what we do. we ought to go out and help him. all of a sudden, remember the new york 23rd, our guys called us up the day the nominee was handed over and said the republicans just lost this congressional race. they nominated somebody who can't possibly win. our real people on the real ground in the real districts and states who live with the real

voters, this is a shocker for you. they know better than what's going on than the people in offices in washington looking at superficial criteria like they can self-fund their campaign or they got large name. look, i got the largest name idea among farmers and all in america than probably anybody in this country. you think i'm going to win a primary in iowa? no. because peanut farmers and corn farmers hate me because i'm against ethanol and i'm against the peanut quota. a large name idea doesn't mean you're electable. it just means people know you. it doesn't mean they like you. it just means they know you. but politicians and politics is a very superficial business and their choice criteria is oftentimes not something that runs very deep. or is very well-informed or insightful. our grassroots activists know more quickly of what's happening in terms of the predilections of

the voting constituency than the party apparatus. why? because our people live in america. these folks live in washington. there's a big difference. >> the most recent electoral test of the tea party movement was in the texas primaries. and in those elections the candidate for governor fizzled after she failed to repudiate 9/11 conspiracy theories and most of the congressional candidates got few votes. thoughts? >> what, you mean the tea party -- oh, yeah. this is should surprise nobody. if you take a look at the infrastructure of the republican party and the democratic party, it is very real, very strong, very pervasive and been in place a long time. third-party efforts don't compete well with that. and an awful lot of these in texas we have a term we got from mel tillis. cocoa cola cowboy.

we don't call you cowboy until you ride. you're all hat and all cattle and this guy shows up and says these tea party thing is big out there. i'm going to get in the campaign against kevin grady and i'll be the tea party candidate. how did i get to be that? i said i was. the problem was all the tea party folks say who is this guy? i never saw him before. you can't just claim that i'm the tea party candidate. first of all, understand, most of the american people don't do very well with the english language. tea party does not mean a third political party called tea. it means a bunch of people got together and threw a bunch of tea in the water to protest excessive obtrusive inefficient ineffective government that was not respectful of your liberties. so we got a lot of people out there who just lack understanding. and they said, oh, there's a third-party in america called

the tea party. i'm going to be -- i'm going to be the tea candidate. you know, so they don't do well. the fact of the matter is, the republican party is going to -- now, what we do is we're helping the republican party in florida to pick the right candidate through its normal process. we're helping the republican party in utah to pick the right candidate through its normal process. so that our job is not to have our folks be -- win the election against the republican nominee, but to get the republican party to nominate somebody who believes in freedom, liberty, small government, and all the things we cherish. and that party can be what it is and has been in the past on occasions the party of reagan. >> so how would one tell moth authentic tea party candidate is other than the criteria if it's successful it's the tea party, if it's unsuccessful it's an imposter?

>> so the first thing -- i talked to a lot of folks about this. if somebody shows up and said i'm the tea party candidate then call somebody who is a known identified tea party activist that you've actually seen before. doing something. and say do you know this guy? if they know them, then he's got a beginning with you. but the fact of the matter is, the small government conservative movement which includes people who call themselves tea party patriots and so forth is about the principles of liberty as embodied in the constitution with the understanding of which is fleshed out if you read things like the federalist papers. your understanding of the way the world works if you read -- read hayek and mesis. i know it's hard but it cuts deeper than keynes. any eighth grader can understand keynes in five minutes.

background the conditions of allocatetive efficiency and get deep into things and then all of a sudden you understand gee, freedom works. freedom of individual right to hold your expressions, your first amendment, second amendment rights. all these things are precious to us. and they were given to us by great and courageous, brave people all of whom -- i want to say something that i want you to tell you i believe with all my heart. those people at the american constitutional congress were all smarter than any number of people in this town today that would equate to their number. you can't get -- if there were 100 people there, i don't know how many people were there. if there were 100 people there, you can't find 100 people in this town today that are as smart as they were and they were more courageous than any equal number of people you can find.

who the heck do these people think they are? to try to sit in this town with their audacity and second-guess the greatest genius, most courageous genius in the rest of the world. who the hell do they think they are and our folks just get mad about that. we look at the pointer sisters, you guys got it right. mr. big shot, who do you think you are. these people should be cherished. no nation state in the history of the world -- the world never got a gift so great as these wonderful genius who had enough decency to respect the language and use it with discipline. how bizarre is that today? they understood the meaning of every word they used and the precision and they care about what am i saying here. they didn't just babble. they didn't just be glib.

they didn't think talent was a substitute for ability. they thought you had to work hard and take a risk to create a nation unlike none ever before or since having been created. and they ought to be celebrated and respected. and, quite frankly, we, and i dare say now i speak for all of us in this small government movement, we are very short on patience with modern day smart alecks who think they know better than those wonderful courageous, brave people that gave us the greatest nation in the history of the world and we just simply ask you, have a little respect, will you? have a little respect. >> part of your job as majority leader was to hold together your majority with votes from many moderate republicans. how did you do that? and what do you believe moderates bring to the gop? >> well, unlike this -- by the way, this current legislative

leadership is quite inept, the first rule we had was as we take a bill through the committee process, fix the problems along the way. don't try to fix the problems on the floor. resolve the problems -- i remember the banking bill that is now so badly cursed by people who think they can manage banking in america, we sent that bill back to committee four times before we let the chairman take it to the bill. it's a very painful for the chairman. he got very impatient with it. you people have major problems with the bill. we put it on the floor. we won't be able to get the votes to pass it. let's go back to committee and fix the problems. the legislative process requires rigorous hard work, thorough and complete hard work. you don't just slapdash something over a weekend, put it together and stick it on the floor. we have been legislating by

panic certainly since 9/11 of '01. is that not right? look at congress. i see a bunch of lemons. somebody is going to jump and holler fire and they're going to rush right off the cliff. can you imagine somebody coming to me -- if you would have come to me and said mr. majority leader, i need a bill that gives $700 billion to the secretary of the treasury, no strings attached, no questions to be asked, let them do what he wants and i need it by monday? i would have probably said, you suppose we ought to stop and think about this for a minute? so, one, look what they've done in healthcare. you talk about inept. no wonder dennis kucinich is mad. they started off saying we're going to have the government do single payer. government is going to do the whole thing. they couldn't get that even from among themselves. so then they said, okay, we'll have a government option and we'll make enrollment in the private sector option so onus and so punitive, so fraught with

audits and other reprisals that people will just voluntarily come and be part. they couldn't get that even among themselves. now, they got nothing other than a federal mandate. everybody must buy insurance as we define it. and a few other things to sabotage the private sector. and their last ditch effort to get something and they have to go through extraordinary kinds of parliamentary practices and to compel the thing through congress just so they can walk away having said we did something. now, if that is not the definition of ineptness, i don't know what is. the president is going up to -- help me out, ohio today to try to get kucinich. you know, so first do serious,

rigorous legislative work. and it's helpful if you really want to get the thing voted on and get the votes, have the thing somehow just remotely acceptable to the voting constituents and the poor slobs you're trying to throw them under the bus. these guys crack me up. the biggest problem you got right now is they are ineptly trying to do the wrong thing. if they listen to waylon jennings they would have gotten to the point. he said very clearly there's no right way to do the wrong thing. and they can't. they can probably force this through. 'cause you can't discount the number of people who can be moved by a ruthless and powerful political leader or group of political leaders. the consequences of saying no to powerful and ruthless people who

have a serious case of the bound-tos can be very painful and the average member of congress, house and senate, is first and foremost only a self-serving inconvenience minimizer who doesn't have a lot of principles they stand on in the first place. it doesn't take much to move a jellied spine. just think of the pain they would have put themselves and their own members through in order to only do the most feeble way possible to do the wrong thing. >> sausage making aside, do you think the democrats could get a political balance from passing healthcare and could you please weigh in on speaker pelosi's skills on getting votes. >> they will be politically bounced. if i do a play on puns. they will get bounced.

you have to understand the american people don't want this in any iteration. and you have to understand i like nancy pelosi personally. i like harry reid personally. i had more friends that were democrats and more enemies that were republicans. dick gephardt by the way had the same experience. the reason were -- and the democrat never did office politics against me and that's the mean stuff. but the fact of the matter is, what has probably surprised me more than anything else about speaker pelosi is in her ineptness. i didn't know anybody could rise to the position of the speaker and be that inept. you have to understand, the democrats in office have practiced purposeful sloppy work for years in order to

enfranchise two of their most important constituencies, trial lawyers and bureaucrats. so they're so accustomed to doing sloppy work that i don't think they have left within them the skills to do the disciplined hard work that such ventures is required. so i don't really fault her. she wasn't trained in skilled disciplined work. she was skilled in sloppy work. harry reid, too, it breaks my heart for harry. he's going to lose his senate seat. but he doesn't have the administrative skills to do this. this is hard work. now, one final point, i believe, with all my mind, as long as i'm on a mission here. i don't think nancy pelosi is that mean a person. i'm surprised at some of the mean things she does. and i honestly believe her meanness comes from george miller. so i just wanted to say that.

i don't think nancy pelosi is of nearly so mean as people think she is. i think svengali is back there saying that. i hated those blue dogs anyway. let's throw them under the bus. anyway, yeah, i'm surprised by that. i really am shocked by it. but i don't think -- she's more inept than i thought she was but she's not as mean as people think she is. >> you have repeatedly cited the federalist papers as an inspiration for small government conservatism of the tea party movement yet alexander hamilton the author of the majority of the federalist papers is regarded then and now as a strong central government. thoughts? >> well, i'd have to go back and review this and the first thing you say if you tell me about hamilton, who's widely regarded by whom today modern day ill-informed political science professors? i wouldn't take their word for much of anything. first of all, why do they call it science? why don't they call it political opinion? anyway, i just doubt that was the case in fact about hamilton.

i'll go back and study that with that question in mind. but there was so much warning against the travails, for example, of a legislative body that would cede its just and necessary authorities to the executive branch and how much of that have we seen going on. in this country. again, i would first question your authority of that characterization of hamilton. >> we're going to leave the last few minutes of this recorded program as the u.s. senate gavels in shortly. members returning to work on a nearly $18 billion jobs bill. in about 15 minutes we expect two votes, the last one being final passage. senators then plan to return to legislation on extending faa programs with dozens of amendments still pending. the chamber plans to recess from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm eastern so democratic members can attend a caucus meeting and when the senate does return they'll begin

an impeachment trial for judge thomas of louisiana. last week they had four articles of impeachment without no opposition. live now to the senate floor here on c-span2. senate will come to order. the chaplain, dr. barry black, will lead the senate in prayer. the chaplain: let us pray. almighty god, our loving heavenly father, thank you for -- the center of our joy, thank you for your gracious care for each of us. help our lawmakers live today with a sense of accountability to you, striving to please you more than others. awaken them to the fact that you see all they do and hear all they say.

may they walk from weakness to strength, growing in ethical fitness day by day in order to fulfill your purposes for their lives. lord, give them a special measure of inner peace so that they may be peacemakers during times of tension and conflict. we pray in your sovereign name. amen. the presiding officer: thank you, dr. black. please join me in the pledge of allegiance to our flag. i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america

and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. the presiding officer: the clerk will read a communication to the senate. the clerk: washington, d.c, march 17, 2010. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable tom udall, a senator from the state of new mexico, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: robert c. byrd, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: the majority leader is recognized. mr. reid: following leader remarks, the senate will resume consideration of the hire act. there will be 10 minutes for debate equally divided and controlled between senators gregg and schumer or their designees. we expect senator gregg to make a budget point of order with respect to the bill. at approximately 9:45, the senate will proceed to a series of roll call votes.

on h.r. 2547. the senate will resume consideration of the f.a.a. reauthorization. the senate will decrease from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. for a special disement caucus. when the senate reconvenes at 2:00 p.m., there will be a live quorum. the senate will consideration articles of impeachment of judge g. david portious of new orleans, louisiana. senators will be sworn & then senators are required to sign the book. consideration of amendments on the f.a.a. are expected throughout the day. the presiding officer: under the previous order, the leadership time is reserved. under the previous order, the senate will resume consideration of the house message on

h.r. 2847, which the clerk will report. the clerk: resolve that the house agree to the amendment of the senate to the amendment of the house to the amendment of the senate to the bill h.r. 2847 entitled "an act making appropriations for the departments of commerce and justice and science and related agencies for the fiscal year ending september 30, 2010 and for other purposes with amendments." the presiding officer: under the previous order, all postcloture time is considered expired. the motion to concur with an amendment is withdrawn. there will be 10 minutes of debate equally divided between the senator from new hampshire, mr. gregg, and the senator from new york, mr. schumer or their designees. who yields time?

mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york is recognized. mr. schumer: i rise in support of the legislation before us and against the motion to waive the point of order. mr. president, this is a good day for american workers. for congress is focusing on what they've asked us to focus on. congress is focusing on what the american people wantes to focu s on, which is jobs, jobs, jobs. and congress will act in a bipartisan way. so this is a break in several ways from the past. one, we're focusing on jobs and the economy. that's what we should be doing. and, second, we're doing it in a bipartisan way. the bill before us focuses on private-sector jobs.

it has four pieces. each is leaned, each is directed at private-sector jobs, each will give the economy a certain lift. you know, mr. president, last quarter we had growth of 5.9%. that sound great. but that 5.9% growth resulted in no new jobs being created. in fact, there's been a continued loss of jobs admittedly, less of a loss than in the past. our job here is to take that growth and translate it into jobs for the american people, plain and simple. and that is what we are doing with this hire act. at the center of it is a bipartisan piece of legislation, a payroll tax holiday for a year for any new worker hired who has been unemployed for 60 days,

authored by the senator from utah, senator hatch, and myself. it is the bipartisan glue which hopefully will stick with us as we move forward on our jobs agenda because this is just the first, certainly not the last, piece of legislation that we will put forward in relation to jobs. if we don't create jobs, the economy will not move forward. if we don't create jobs, the american people, american business, american labor could lose the optimism that has been part of this country since its founding. and when you lose that optimism, you lose dollars and cents economically, because businesses don't spend, workers don't prepare for the future, people get disconsulate. and so this legislation, it's

admittedly modest and focused, will go far beyond what the specific legislation does, because it will show the american people -- it will show american business large and small, it will show american workers that congress is focused on what they want us to focus on and that we will continue to work on our jobs agenda until jobs start growing, until people are being paid decent wages, until the economy roars back on a long and stable trajectory, which can only be done if employment goes up and ungloiment goes down. -- and unemployment goes down. mr. president, i reserve the balance of my time. mr. gregg: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire is recognized. mr. gregg: mr. president, this isn't so much a jobs bill as it is a debt bill.

it adds to debt, debt, debt. you know, i voted against the budget which passed this house and passed the house of representatives. i voted begins it because it had a trillion dollars of deficit every year for as far as the eye could see. because it basically put our country on a path of u unsustainability where the national debt will double in five years and triple in ten years, where every one of these young men and women sitting here before us who are pages, by the time they graduate from college will have $133,000 of federal debt on their heads, that they'll have to pay off as they go to work. i voted against it because it was profligate, because it wasn't disciplined and because it was excessive. but it appears it wasn't excessive enough for my colleagues on the other side of the aisle. this will be the third week in a row that the leadership of the

democratic party in this body has brought a bill to this floor that violates their own budget. and spends more than other own budget called for. a budget which this year will run $1.6 trillion of deficit isn't running a big enough deficit according to the other side of the aisle. they have to run the deficit up with this bill by another $3 billion proliferate authorized money above their own budget. that's on top of last week when they spent $30 billion this year and $1 billion over five years in excess of their own budget. when's it going to stop? when is it going to stop in when are we going to stop spending money around here as if there's no tomorrow, because pretty soon there will be no tomorrow for

our children, as we add this debt to their backs and make it impossible for them to have the standard of living that we've had. you know, moody's today -- or, yesterday came out and said that although today the triple-a rating of this country is not at risk, it may be down the road if we continue to spend money that we don't have at the rate we're spending it. that's not a sign of optimism for the future. that's a sign that our nation is in trouble. it's in trouble because of us. there is a lost talk around here about what's the systemic risk to this economy. the systemic risk is this congress, which continues to spend money it doesn't have, send the bill on to our kids at a rate that they can't afford to pay it off. so that their lifestyle will actually have to be reduced, their quality of life, their standard of living will go down. because they'll be paying for

all this debt we're putting on their backs today. and what's even worse is that this congress isn't even willing to live by the profligate -- and i hope capital letters will be put in the record on that because it should be all spelled in capital letters -- by the profligate budget which passed this house and which projected trillions of dollars of deficits for as far as the eye can see and doubled the debt in five years and tripled it in ten. that wasn't enough. no! we've got to come to the floor again this week, after last week, after the week before, with another bill that breaks their own budget. so all i'm asking for is that at least the other side of the aisle be willing to live by its own budget. last week i asked that they be willing to live by their own paygo rules. that didn't pass. $100 billion was spent that wasn't paid for. so this week inl a making a point of order that -- so this

week i'm making a point of order that simply say, live by your own budget. you passed a budget, at least live by that you know. can't you live within $106 trillion deficit? do you really have to add another $3 trillion, of authorized dollars, to that deficit this year? gosh, i hope not. so i'm making a point of order and asking that we live by the budget that was passed by the democratic congress. the pending amendment would cost the aggregate levels of the budget authority and the outlays for the fiscal year 2010 at set out in the most recently agreed to concurrent resolution on the budget, s. con. res. 13, to be exceeded -- the democratic budget, by the way. i put that in parentheses. and therefore, i raise a point of order under section 311-a-2 of the congressional budget act

of 1924 -- 1974. i'm sorry. the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new york is recognized. mr. schumer: i will support the motion to waive the point of order. i believe i have a minute left. now, mr. president, the world is topsy-turvy. my republican colleagues are opposing a tax cut to business, large and small, that hires people. this is exactly what we should do. we don't want to be saying to workers they can't -- we can't help them find a job. there are shades of he herbert hoover in what my colleague is saying. and i don't think many of my colleagues on either side of the aisle would support that. and let me say this about the budget point of order: the joint tax committee, which we all respect here, says that these provisions are budget-neutral. we have found a way to hire

workers, help business with tax cuts to hire them, and keep it budget-neutral. and yet there is still opposition. when will it end? when will the bipartisan kind of feeling in this body return, because this is a bipartisan measure that lives by many of the tenets that the party on the other side has stood for for decades. and so, mr. president, is there any time remaining? the presiding officer: the senator's time has expired. mr. schumer: then, mr. president, pursuant to section 904 of the congressional budget act of 1974, the waiver provisions of applicable budget resolutions, and section 4-g-3 of the statutory pay-as-you-go act of 2010, i move to waive all applicable sections of those acts and applicable budget resolutionresolutions for the pf the pending amendment and ask for the yeas and nays. mr. gregg: mr. president? the presiding officer: is there a sufficient second? ther.

mr. gregg: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire is recognized. mr. gregg: parliamentary inquiry. i have made a motion that says that the budget point of order stands under section 311, which point of order specifically lies because of the fact that the amendment before us, or the bill before us spends more in authority and outlay than the budget act passed by this congress allows. is that not correct? is that motion not well taken? the presiding officer: the chair understands that the point of order would be well taken. mr. gregg: which means that, mr. president, more money is being spent than is allowed to be spent under our budget rules; is that correct, under this bill? the presiding officer: the

senator is correct. mr. gregg: thank you, mr. president. mr. schumer: mr. president? the presiding officer: the question is on the motion. the yeas and nays have been ordered. mr. schumer: mr. president? i note the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. mcconnell: mr. president? are we in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are in a quorum call. the republican leader is recognized. mr. mcconnell: i ask consent that the quorum call be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. mcconnell: mr. president, i've been in the senate for quite awhile. i've seen a lot, but i've never seen anything like the plan that house democrats hatched this week to jam their health care bill through congress and over the objections of the american

people. americans woke up yesterday thinking they'd seen everything in this debate already. then they heard the latest. they heard that democrats want to approve the senate version of the health care bill without actually standing up and taking a vote on it. let me say that again: they heard that democrats over in the house want to approve the senate bill without actually voting on it. these democrats want to approve a bill that rewrites one-sixth of the economy, forces taxpayers to pay for abortions, raises taxes in the middle of a recession and slashes medicare for seniors without leaving their fingerprints on it. in other words, they want to get around the very purpose of a roll call vote. they want to hide what they're doing from the american people who they seem to view as an obstacle. they want to hide what they're doing from the american people

whom they see as an obstacle to what they're trying to do. well, it won't work. they realized that yesterday when they saw the public reaction to their plan. americans are more outraged than ever. americans are shocked at these tactics. they're fed up, and they've had enough. and the longer democratic leaders ignore this outrage and ignore these questions, the worse it's going to get. democrats have lost their perspective in this debate. they have lost their way. they don't even seem to care what the public thinks. speaker pelosi said yesterday that she'll do -- quote -- "whatever it takes" to ensure that this bill becomes law. and what i will she's at it, she's throwing other legislation into the bill that doesn't have anything to do with health care, major legislation that would enable the government to take over the student loan industry

without any debate whatsoever. that's been their strategy all along. any time one of their proposals meets resistance, they look for a way to get around it. but the schemes they've used end up making their proposals even more repellent than they originally were. and this latest scheme is the most outrageous one yet. so they've tapped -- so what's happened here is they're trapped in a vicious cycle that someone over there needs to bring to a halt. this is now a fight between democrats and their own constituents. and the only way to stop this madness is for a few courageous democrats to step forward and put a stop to it. historians will remember this. historians will remember this as a new low in this debate. the week that america was introduced to the scheme-and-deem approach to

legislating. the scheme-and-deem approach to legislating. they'll remember this as the week that congress tried to pull the wool over the eyes of the public in order to get around their will. and they'll remember the men and women who stand up and put an end to it. mr. president, i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the question is on the motion to waive. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

vote: the presiding officer: are there any senators in the chamber who wish to vote or to change a vote? if not, on this vote the yeas are 63. the nays are 34.

three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted in the affirmative, the motion is not agreed to. a senator: move to reconsider. a senator: move to lay on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. -- on the motion to concur on the house amendments to the senate amendment to the house amendment to the senate amendment to h.r. 2847. is there a sufficient second? there appears to be. the clerk will call the roll. vote:

vote:

the presiding offerare thery senators in the chamber wishing to vote or change their vote? if not, the ayes are 68 and the nays are 29. the motion to concur in the house amendments to the senate amendment to the house amendment to senate amendment h.r. 2847 is agreed to. fellful i move to reconsider the vote and -- mr. rockefeller: i move to reconsider the vote and lay it on the table. the presiding officer: without objection. the senator is recognized. mr. johanns: mr. president, i

ask to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. johanns: and i would also like to lock in, if you will, that senator landrieu will follow me. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. johanns: mr. president, i rise today to discuss the u.s. department of agriculture's animal identification system. over the past many years, usda has administered a system called the national animal identification system, nais. the ultimate goal of the system was to keep track of animal movements so that we could trace back animals in the event of a disease outbreak. the first step under animal i.d. was to register farms, where animals are housed, also known as premises. and that registration was to occur in databas a database. after registering a database, a producer could identify

individual animals or groups of animals that moved to or from a frem. each given an individual i.d. number. now, this system worked for those who wanted to use it, but no one was forced to participate. in other words, it was a voluntary system. if producers wanted to participate in the program so they could keep track of animal movements or because a trading partner might be more inclined to buy their product or for any reason that worked well with their operation, then it was there for them, it was at their disposal. but as long as nais was in existence, it was a voluntary program. now, recently, on february 5, 2010, usda announced it was doing away with that and developing a new framework for animal disease traceability in the united states. it caught my attention, as a

former secretary of agriculture. the obama administration completed a series of listening sessions held by usda's animal and plant health inspection service. we refer to them as aphis. those were done just last year. having held farm bill forums across the country as the secretary of agriculture, i applaud any effort to hear directly from farmers and ranchers, and i plodded that effort -- and i applauded that effort. i was very appreciative that at my request one of 0 those animal i.d. listening sessions was in fact held in my own home state of nebraska. but i must admit, after the listening sessions, i was very surprised at the new framework that the usda has developed. usda says this: they say the new program is not a mandatory program, except for animals that travel to a

different state from where they were born. think about that. that little caveat basically means that the program is a mandatory program for a whole lot of livestock in the united states. you see, mr. president, anybody who has any farm background or ag experience will tell you that the vast majority of animals in this country move to a different state in their lifetime. it's just simply a fact. additionally, the program is mandatory not only for premise registration but for the actual tracking of the animal. and here's the real kicker: state governments will be tasked with keeping track of the livestock under the new system. it's almost like this administration realized how much opposition there was to a

mandatory system -- and, believe me, there is -- and decided to hand the hot potato to the states. but in doing that, they said, thou shalt do it, but keep the headache away from our desks. states are genuinely and rightfully concerned about this new program potentially being dumped on them. i am already hearing from officials and producers in my home state, and they are enormously concerned by this proposal. some groups are even urging the nebraska department of agriculture, which would be tasked with administering the program, to refuse to participate. and, believe me, this isn't the last state that will weigh in on this very, very controversial proposal. later this week, there's a meeting of state departments of agriculture, state

veterinarians, and other interested parties to further examine this issue. that's why i'm here on the senate floor. i'm going to be very anxious to hear their input and to hear the outcome of that meeting, because there is great concern in farm country for this proposal. my hope is that conference participants can get answers to some basic questions. consider this: let's say a nebraska farmer buys a nebraska calf with no tracking number and puts it out 0 on a nebraska pasture. so that's in state, and that's pretty clear. no need to comply. now sometime later, after that calf has gained some weight, it's then taken to the auction barn, the sale barn. at this point, in the sale barn there's multiple buyers from all over the country typically. could be buyers from nebraska and kansas, iowa, other states.

they're all in the arena to bid on their calves. but, apparently, only buyers from nebraska could make bids, even though other buyers from other states might offer more money. but, let's say by chance, a nebraska feed lot the highest bid he and buys the calf. still in state, can feed the calf out, still no reason to comply with the animal feed program. but now some months later, the steer is ready to go to the packing plant. but the plant is on the other sued of the river in another state and they'll pay more than a plant in state for that animal. whoa, wait a second here. can the feed processors sell? probably not because the two

owners prior to him chose to not participate in the program. the bottom line is this, many livestock auctions attract bidders from in state and states around, states all over the country. so one can assume all animals sold through an auction barn will be required to have animal i.d. for those who have been to these sales, can you imagine literally the auctioneer stopping the sale and saying "these animals aren't registered. only nebraska purchasers can buy the animals"? if not, if they weren't i.d.'d, auctioneers would literally have to stop the bidding and announce where the potential seller resides for each animal without a tracking number. then many of the buyers would have to sit on the sidelines, visit the bathroom, go to the

vending machine, anything but bid on that calf. can you imagine? it just doesn't make any sense. what will be the viability of the cattle operations in this country or that sale barn? what about the rancher who sells some of his cattle in state and some of it goes to facilities in other states? will that person be required to tag some of the animals in the feed lot but not others? he's going to spend more time trying to figure out how to comply with the usda program than he or she will spend ranching. producers are basically going to be forced to fully participate in the program, and i think the usda knows it. if a potential buyer is from another state, there can be no deal unless the animal has the tracking number. this looks like a backdoor mandate that's being packaged as

something else. worse yet, the package is being delivered and dropped on the doorstep of our states. so let's face the facts, this so-called new animal i.d. plan is a mandatory system when it was promoted as a voluntary one. in my judgment, to be very blunt about this, this is a wolf in sheep's clothing, but america's farmers and ranchers aren't going to be fooled. they know better than anyone that the vast majority of agricultural commerce occurs across state lines and even country to country, and they deserve better. mr. president, let me be clear, i did not come down here to be critical of the fact that usda is considering new approaches. in fact, i want to acknowledge that when i was the secretary, i called a time-out to fully

understand the complexities of the animal i.d. and to hear from producers. i openly said i'm considering making this a mandatory program. i thought a mandatory approach might be necessary, and we listened and we studied it very closely. and then we went to the countryside, and we listened to farmers and ranchers, and what we heard over wheuplgly is -- overwhelmingly is, "mike, do not make this a mandatory program." we realize that producers already comply with a laundry list of federal regulations, and in this administration it grows by the day. they take numerous steps to ensure the safety of their animals. that is their livelihood. mandating an animal identification system would have been one more costly burden dictated on the rancher by the

federal government. so i appeal to my friend, secretary vilsack. we were governors together. i know where you are coming from. i went down that road too. and i can tell you, mr. secretary, it is a dead end. on one hand, usda has acknowledged the broad and decomposition in the countryside when the administration seemed to say we're going to go forward anyway. our producers have spent years trying to understand themselves what nais is about. there is no repackaging that will convince them that another federal mandate is a good idea. does this administration think states will embrace this hot potato with all the costs in the unanswered questions that go with it? i don't see it. the old nais system was not perfect.

we always acknowledge that this is hugely complicated. but calling it voluntary and then leaving producers no real choice, that's far from perfect. and, most importantly, it's not a solution. i urge the usda to reconsider. mr. president, thank you. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana is recognized. ms. landrieu: thank you, mr. president. i am pleased to come to the floor this morning as the chair of the small business committee with several of my colleagues from the committee that have been hard at work coming up with ideas, drafting and passing legislation in the small business committee over the last three months particularly to get ready for this time. mr. president, p tofs time that this senate and congress move the third jobs bill. and as a focus on small business

in america. i want to acknowledge the members of the small business committee. two of them will join me this morning and we will all, hopefully, be on the floor over the next couple of days and weeks talking about the importance of focusing on small business job creation in america. my ranking member, of course, is the great senator from maine, senator snowe; john kerry, former chair of the committee; chris bond former chair; the senator from michigan carl levin, evan bayh, roger wicker, mark pryor, james reich and ben cardin. jeanne shaheen is also here and kay kagan. let me say, mr. president that, these members have been

extraordinary in my view. we have passed not one, not two, not three, not four but five fairly significant pieces of legislation in a completely bipartisan fashion. the bills that i'm going to highlight this morning have been passed by our committee by large and convincing margins. 18-0, 15-3, 16-4. we are very proud of the work that we've done. and my call to the senators this morning is to let's get our eyes off of wall street and get our eyes on main street. if we really want to dig out of this recession that we're in, created by a number of things -- failed policies from the past administration, a confluence of a crash of the stock market and

the financial sector, poor regulation from us over time. but, you know, mr. president, the people that have really suffered are the small business owners that, unlike maybe large businesses and public companies, have put everything at risk. everything: their future, their house, their children's future. everything at risk to create business, because that's what americans do. and we do it better than any country on earth. and as soon as we recognize the rength of arithat's what the sms committee is focused on. and we want attention, and will get it, to this issue. and i want to thank the members for their hard work and support. in this toxic environment to get anything out of committee with that kind of vote, i think we deserve a round of applause before we even start, but that's

another story for another day. now we have to move the bills through the process. i want to just share this graph which is, i think, very telling. the share of net new jobs created, 65% of the new jobs created by everything we do here will be created by small business. not by big business. large firms are shrinking, reorganizing, sort of waiting for the market to come back. i understand that. they have a fiduciary responsibility. these folks are out there taking the big risk. when the way is not khraoerbgs when it's still cloudy, small business is out there taking a chance that maybe things will turn around. these are the people we have to get our eyes on. as chair of the small business committee, i've heard for months that small businesses want to

hire new workers. they need to hire new workers. they can expand their business, but they don't have the ability. small business owners like ray mash, who owns several neighborhood pharmacies in southwest louisiana has an excellent track record. he's been in business over 20 years. he's never missed a payment. he can't get a loan from his bank because he uses the small business lending program, and he's capped at $2 million. one of our bills would raise that cap to $5 million. mr. president, that is something we must do now. so until we do, business owners like ray wait. they wait to get larger loans to expand their businesses. they wait for a government contract. they wait for opportunities for counseling as they attempt to boost sales by tapping in to potential markets overseas. so i want to show you the export chart which is also very

telling. when i saw this, i had my staff use it at every town hall i do because i actually didn't believe it. i made them go back and do it several times because it was just so, so contrary to my notion of the world. but it is true, and this is the truth. all small businesses in america *f every one we know, less than 1% export their goods out of this country. you think about that. when the market in america is soft and our businesses are trying to create jobs, we can do what we can to energize these markets at home, but we most certainly should be looking overseas. but i can tell you why small businesses would be a little nervous about it. because they've never negotiated with big old trade representatives from china and korea and germany and france.

it can be a little intimidating. but you know what? they've got great products. and with the internet, they've got the world at their if i think tips. what they don't -- at their finger tips. what they don't have is an export bill that gives them the opportunity to get the training through departments that are paid for, departments that are set up but not focused on small business and helping them trade. i want to see this pie chart expanded. i don't know if we can expand it to 10% of small businesses in america or 20%. but, mr. president, we can't sit at 1% while our people lose jobs here. that's why this package is important. and i want to thank senator shaheen for her extraordinary leadership and also my ranking member, senator stphorbgs who has spent -- senator snowe, who has spent a great deal of time talking about, in our committee and in our hearings, the opportunity for trade. that's what this package does as well.

i want to present the access to capital coalition that's behind us. we did not come here to the floor alone. we have an extraordinary coalition for a jobs agenda from small business groups all over america, from the small business groups represented by the chamber of commerce to the federation of small business to san francisco small business network, to greater providence chamber of commerce, martin builders association, the main street alliance, just to read a few. oregon small business for responsible leadership. this list represents hundreds of thousands of businesses that say to me every day, "senator, does anybody know we're here?" i mean, every day we pick up the paper, and all we read about is a.i.g., goldman sachs, general motors, exxon. we think those companies are great. i we hope maybe to be -- we hope

maybe to be as big as they are someday, but does anybody know we're here? i want you to know i know you're there and we're going to fight hard for you and we're going to pull this coalition together to focus on the one group of people in america that can actually create jobs, which would be the small businesses found in every neighborhood, in every main street, in urban areas, suburban areas, and, yes, mr. president, even in rural areas can create the kind of jobs we need to lift this nation out of the worst recession since the great depression. you, mr. president, were a banker. you understand the importance of lending money to small businesses and getting it to them when they need it, quickly. you established some extraordinary opportunities in your home state of illinois. that's what this package of bills does that has passed out of the small business committee and is pending for action in this senate. small businesses have borne the greatest burden in this economy.

they are the businesses that have the greatest potential to improve it. by making these simple, inexpensive and commonsense proposals to help small business, we can turn pink slips into paychecks for american workers, and we can lift our entire nation out of this terrible recession into a bright irday in the fiewp d. into a brighter day in the future. so again i want to thank my colleagues for working in such a bipartisan manner. i want to submit to the record this morning the five bills that make up this package: s. 2869, the small business business creation act, s. 2862, the small business export and enhancement, s. 2989, the small business contracting improvement act, s. 1229, the entrepreneurial development act, and s. 1233, the str

reauthorization act. we will take them up in a package later in the day. but i want to call my colleagues' ateption 0 this package of bills that will expand contracting opportunities with the federal government, that by the way spends billions of dollars right now with business. if we just spent a little by the more with small business, these small businesses instead of absorbing the contracts which the big businesses do, they'd have to hire up -- i want to ask for 30 seconds more, if i -- unanimous consent for 30 seconds more. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. ms. landrieu: the small businesses, when they get a contract from the federal government, they will staff up because that's what small businesses do. they're very flexible. they're very agile. they'll scale down and they can scale up quickly. so i am proud of this package, and i want to recognize my two members that are here on the floor, the former governor and now senator from rhode island

here -- new hampshire, i'm sor sorry, jeanne shaheen, who is here on the floor, who's been a great leader on this issue. thank you, senator. and also senator ben cardin from maryland is here. he has been a particularly strong leader on the contracting for small businesses. so i'd like to ask the senator to join me in her remarks this morning. mrs. shaheen: thank you, mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire is reasonable cared. hurricane katrina hoon i ask to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: -- mrs. shaheen: i ask to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. hurricane katrina hoon i am so pleased to join -- mrs. shaheen: i am so pleased to join senator landrieu and senator cardin will be able to speak after me, to talk about the importance of small businesses and what we have to do to support small business in this country. now, small businesses in new hampshire and across the country, as senator landrieu has said, are struggling. of the jobs lost last year, almost 40% came from businesses with 50 or fewer employees.

and while we've taken important steps to bring back the economy from the brink of depression, sales and consumer demand are still too low and too many small business owners remain frozen out of credit markets. this economy is not going to fully recover until our small businesses fully recover. in the past, it's been small business that's created most of the new jobs coming out of a recession, and this recovery is going to be no different. if we want to see job growth in this country, we need to take action to help small businesses get back on their feet. now, as a former small business owner, i know that it's business and not government that creates jobs and drives innovation and new ideas. but i also know that government has an important role to play in helping small business create jobs, especially in these very difficult economic times. under the leadership of our

chair, senator landrieu, who's done a great job, along with ranking member senator snowe, in the last several months, the small business committee has produced five major pieces of legislation to help small companies create jobs again, and senator landrieu has laid those out for peevment i'm proud to be a sponsor of all five of these bills. they spur research and innovation. he ensure small business get their fair share of government contracts. they expand s.b.a. lending programs, so small business can obtain affordable credit. they strengthen the technical services the s.b.a. can provide. and they help small business gain access to international markets to sell their goods and services. these bills, as we've heard senator landrieu say, were bipartisan efforts that passed the committee with nearly unanimous votes from both the republican and democratic members. and i hope that we are soon going to see these bills on the the floor of the senate and that

they will pass unanimously here on the floor. all of the bills are important, but today i want to focus on what we can do to help open global markets to small business, because i strongly believe that in order to have a sustained recovery from this recession, we need to expand exports. domestic consumer demand in the united states simply will not rise to the level it was before the recession. now, the good news is that the potential for export growth is enormous. over 95% of the world's customers live outside of the united states, but, as we saw so dramatically on that chart senator landrieu just showed, only about 1% of small businesses export their goods and services. and small companies that export usually only sell to one foreign market while larger companies typically sell to five or more foreign markets.

emerging markets in developing countries like china, india, and brazil offer great opportunities for growth. by 2020, about 90% of the world's population will live in emerging markets. there's a huge potential for smaller companies to tap these markets to grow their business, to create jobs. i've long been an advocate for exporting because international markets are very important to new hampshire. i was the first governor to lead a trade mission from new hampshire overseas, and those trade missions that i led brought back about $500 million in sales for new hampshire business. small business generates almost half of new hampshire's total exports, and we have some great success stories. dart ware, a software developer in west lebanon on the western side of our state first started exporting to canada, which are neighbors of new hampshire, for those people who aren't sure on

their geography. now they say to more than 80 countries and during this recession, exporting has made a huge difference on their bottom line. last year their international sales were 33% of their total sales. this past january, export sales represented 63% or almost double their total sales. another company, a small business called sky scan in nashua designs and produces state-of-the-art technologies for planetariums. you wouldn't think there would be that many planetariums around the world, but they have exported their products and services to over 120 countries. even in the midst of one of the most difficult economies in our nation's history, sky scan was able to bring on 10 new employees. now, in the state of the union speech, president obama set a goal of doubling american exports in the next five years. he recently signed an executive

order creating an export promotion cabinet. i strongly support those efforts. i know other members of the small business committee do as well. a recent world bank study found that each dollar spent on export promotion and assistance brought a 40-fold return. right now the u.s. spends considerably less than the international average in helping small businesses export. government export promotion and assistance is a smart investment that helps create jobs. and one of the important actions that we need to take here in the senate to help improve export promotion is to quickly enact the small business export enhancement and international trade act of 2509. one of those five pieces of legislation that senator landrieu laid out. we need to make the s.b.a. a more valuable resource for small businesses looking to export their goods and services, and

this bill does just that. i hope that, as these bills come to the floor of the senate, that we will take a close look and we will recognize that if we're going to help small businesses export, then we've got to give them the tools to do that. this legislation does that. it helps small companies finance their exports by increasing loan limits. it guarantees s.b.a. export loan programs, and it expands the number of s.b.a. financial specialists who are posted around the country. this bill directs the s.b.a. to collaborate more with other agencies that provide services and programs for small exporters, something the s.b.a. has begun doing under the leadership of administrator karen mills. so, more u.s. exports abroad mean more jobs here at home. we can and must do more. we dmows it smarter to help

small companies compete globally. if we don't, w we risk falling behind and our economies, our businesses and our families will lose out. mr. president, i yield the floor, and i look forward to hearing from my colleague, senator cardin. mr. cardin: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from maryland is recognized. mr. cardin: i would also ask unanimous consent to speak as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. cardin: -- as part of the comments made by senator landrieu and senator hey hasn' d senator she hasn't. we're leer to talk about the importance of job creation in our economy. we all need we need to create jobs and the way to create jobs is to help small businesses. too much of the focus over the last couple years has been on helping the large companies, the large banks. we need to focus on small companies in order to create new job opportunities for americans. i want to compliment senator shaheen on her comments. she's absolutely right. small businesses can create many

jobs here in the united states by creating products that are wanted around the globe. the problem is, it's very complicated for a small business owner to have the type of staff to deal with the diftds of entering d. difficulties of entering the ndges marketplace. the legislation that senator landrieu has been instrumental in bringing forward in the small business committee that deals with enhancing international trade for small companies, s. 2862, will provide more jobs in america by helping smaller companies be able to get their products into the international marketplace. that makes common sense. as i said in the beginning, mr. president, we need to create more jobs. senator landrieu, in her leadership on the small business committee, has made that our top priority, and i congratulate her for bringing this to our attention.

we know that over 50% of the private-sector jobs are with small companies. we know that 64% of the net new jobs during the past 15 years have come from small companies. that's where the job growth will be. we're talking about creating jobs. we'll create more jobs from small companies, but we've got to help them because they've got many obstacles today. 40% of high-tech workers work for small companies. this is a very interesting statistic. there are 13 times more patents per employee in small companies than in larger companies. innovation comes from our smaller companies. doesn't mean we ignore larger companies. they have opportunities that small companies don't, but if we're going to create the jobs in innovation, we have to have a healthy atmosphere for small businesses today, and we need to do a better job. now, what is the problem? well, problem number one is credit. small companies can't get

traditional credit. many large banks have just closed out giving loans to small companies. i can tell you of the calls that i've gotten to my of course, the letters i've gotten. there's a high-tech company located in hunt valley, maryland, a small business, cannot get a bank to make a refinancing loan so that that high-tech company can expand. they're doing very well. their customer base would be very familiar to many of the members of the senate. but they can't get a bank to be their partner in this environment because they're a small k as a result-- --they're a small company. as a result, many small companies, many small businesses resort to the use of their personal credit cards. they are personal credit cards in order to finance their business. one-third of small companies have over 25% of their overall debt from credit cards. 50% of small businesses' interest rates are 15% or

higher. that's not sustainable, mr. president. you can't run a business based upon that type of financing. we've got to do much better in that regard. and that's why i was particularly pleased by s. 2869 that our children, chairman landrieu, has brought forward with senator snowe that would strengthen the s.b.a.'s capacity to make credit available to small businesses. it would increase the 7-a loan program -- and 7-a loans are the traditional loans that small businesses get in order to finance their operations -- would increase it from $2 million to $5 million. and continued 90% federal guarantee. the the 504 loans, increase that. and the micro loans, micro loans which give a business the opportunity for working capital so that they can move forward with an innovation and an idea

and create jobs, increasing that from 35,000 to 50,000. that tells you how important that is to a small business. that extra $15,000 can be the difference between developing an idea to create jobs or not. i congratulate chairman landrieu for bringing forward that legislation. it passed our committee by a 17-1 vote. this is a strong bipartisan bill that we hope will be made permanent. i might say i think we need to do more. i've introduced legislation that follows in the direction of the president. president obama has suggested that we take some of the tarp funds and we use that to help community banks make loans to small businesses. well, i think we should look at having direct loans by the s.b.a. to small businesses. certainly as a backup, if the private sector is not going to show enough interest to help our small businesses.

i know there are other suggestions to help our states. governor o'malley has suggested that he has a program, could use some additional federal support and could get money out to small businesses for credit quickly. we need to focus on that, because there is a credit crisis for small businesses. we need to be able to do better than we're doing today if we're going to be able to create jobs. in every state in the nation, i know my colleagues have heard from their small business owners that they can't get affordable credit. we need to act in order to bring us out of this current economic downturn. there are other bills i just want to mention briefly. chairman landrieu mentioned the bill that i've been involved with, s. 2989, the small business contracting improvement act. small businesses depend upon government procurement as an effort to get started and to grow. the problem is that there is this cozy relationship between procurement officers and larger companies. so they've developed into practices that have hurt small companies from being able to get the set-asides that we in

congress said that they should do. so what the contractor for the government agency does is they bundle a lot of contracts that should be offered individually. but they bundle them to make them too large for small businesses to be able to bid on. well, this legislation deals with the abuses of bundling, and i congratulate our chair for bringing that forward. it also deals with the abuses between subcontractors and prime contractors. it is no surprise to anyone here that small businesses are more likely to be subs. we don't have transparency and openness to timely payments to subs, the prime contractors really abusing the privileges here. and we have a responsibility to make sure that the law is carried out with the set-asides to small businesses in our procurement policies. and this legislation which passed our committee by a unanimous vote just this,

earlier this month i think will go a long way to helping small businesses and help, again, create jobs in our community. there's other legislation that's out there to strengthen the s.b.a. counseling program; chairman landrieu mentioned. i think that's an important bill. it passed our committee by a 19-0 vote. again, strong bipartisan vote. and another program i want to mention quickly, because during the recovery act there should have been funds set aside by for the sbri program. it was not. we've spoken about that before on the floor this have body. the legislation that passed our committee by an 18-0 vote would increase the allocations on the sbir and sbtr programs which are high-tech set-asides for small high-tech companies which really help us develop innovation in technology here in america, keeping jobs in america and expanding jobs in america. would increase that set-aside from a modest 2.5% to a 3.5%. it passed our committee by an

18-0 vote. these are all important bills that i hope we're going to have an opportunity to take up shortly, as we look at the next jobs bill. i hope that these provisions can be incorporated into legislation we consider. this is bipartisan. i think all my colleagues understand that we've got to create more job opportunities in america. the wraeu to do -- the way to do it is to help small businesses deal with their current needs. i will mention one other bill before yielding the floor, and that is the health care bill, which will help small businesses. the problem i usually hear the most from small businesses were on paying health care costs. now i hear credit. credit is their number-one problem. we provide a credit -- senator landrieu was helpful in getting this started earlier -- providing a credit to our small businesses so they can afford to provide health care for their employees. thank you, senator landrieu, for that provision.

that's going to help small companies and help job growth. we also make the exchanges. these are the exchanges where a small company can go in and buy health policies. i can't tell you how many times i've heard from a small business owner saying i'm getting ripped o. i have no choice -- ripped off. i have no choice on what plan i can take. my employees' health didn't deteriorate. but i have no choice, there is no other company i can get a policy with. under the health reform, we provide options and choice and competition for the small business owner. today they're paying on average 20% more than large companies pay for kerbl insurance -- for comparable insurance coverage for an employees. we shouldn't be discriminating against small businesses in america. and we take major steps forward to eliminate that discrimination. these are all things we can do to create jobs here in america.

to help our small businesses help our nation, help our recovery and help us grow as a nation to be even more competitive, offering good jobs to people in our community who are seeking employment. with that, mr. president, let me yield the remainder of my time to the chairman of the small business committee, the senator from louisiana. the presiding officer: the senator from louisiana is recognized. ms. landrieu: thank you, mr. president. again, i thank my colleagues both, and particularly senator cardin, for that impassioned plea to really focus this place on small business. if rereally are serious about -- if we really are serious about creating jobs, then our focus, our effort, our work should be on the millions of small businesses out there that with just a little bit of tweaking, a little bit of help from, you know, an export initiative here, some regulation reform here,

loan pools here, changing current law could help them do what they want to do, which is expand and grow jobs. i see my colleagues are here to speak, so i'm just going to take one minute to conclude. i want my colleagues to know that while this package is five major bills, there is an initiative that's not in bill form yet. but we are very, very serious about bringing it forward. and it's going to be a pool of capital available. whether it's the way that senator cardin has envisioned it, which is direct loans from the s.b.a. or whether it's the way that senators levin and senator warner have been talking about, an idea to provide a guaranteeed loan pools to leverage private capital in the country, or whether it's something that bill clinton spoke with us about yesterday, which is creating a dynamic new

opportunity to retro fit public buildings in america and put people to work and use the savings and energy efficiency to pay back the loans so there's no new taxpayer money spent. but it's leveraging the private sector to do two great things: provide jobs immediately and make more efficient every public building in america. there's more that we can do. so as the chairman, let me be very clear, i'm very proud of this package. it's five bills. it passed our committee almost unanimously. and i want to say that i hope that as we move this package to the floor, we will get the same cooperation from republican members that are on this floor from the republican members that are on our committee. we have been very open, very sincere in our efforts to pull this package together. and we will continue to work in that good spirit. i hope we are met with that same

feeling. and two more things briefly, i'm probably not going to push to put in this bill a reform piece on credit cards to small businesses because it's not the jurisdiction of our committee. primarily it's the jurisdiction of the banking committee. but i want this senate to know, i'm on record today when senator cardin says -- and he's correct -- how in the world are small businesses in america going to keep in business if they have to pay 15% and 20% interest rates? could anybody tell me this? is there any small business in america that thinks they can make money, hire people and pay 20% interest rates? it is a shame. it is wrong. and we're going to do something about it. small business credit card rates. and i'll tell you why. because in the old days not too

long ago, when the housing market was strong -- which it is not today -- americans who believe in the american dream because we tell them about it when they're four years old, and they actually believe it when they grow up, their house had $200,000 and $300,000 and $400,000 or $50,000 in equity. so when they wanted to start a business, they went to their banker and the banker said how much equity do you have in your house and they said $50,000? they wrote they can a check. they took the money, bought a stove and started a small business, maybe scrambled a little eggs and ham. those days are over with. there is no equity in their homes anymore. and then when they go to their bank, they don't see a sign that says "welcome." i'm not talking about community banks. i'm talking about these big banks that got all the money from us. they see a sign "come back next year when things are better." they have to then dig in their pocket and pull out their credit card. we've done them a great favor;

we allow the companies to charge them not 3%, not 6%, not 10%. but 20%. now i can't put that bill in this package, but i promise you it's coming. we cannot ask small business to pay 20% on their loans. yes, we have to give them tax relief. but you know what they need right now? they need borrowing relief. so, i'm going to conclude with that. it's going to be a good package, and we're going to be very smart about how we put it forward. and i know we have to take the tough things maybe separately. but i am on record, and we're going to fight for it until we get it done. and i yield the floor. thank you. a senator: mr. president? the presing officer: the senator from arizona is recognized. mr. mccain: mr. president, i ask unanimous consent to address the senate as if in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. mccain: before i get into the main topic, i obviously

appreciate the passion of the senator from louisiana. it's unfortunate that she and the majority, the other side, refuse to vote for the most important thing we could have done immediately for small business, and that's give them payroll tax relief and take the money out of the stimulus package, which so much of which is being wasted on issues such as davis-bacon and environmental impact statements. we ought to give small businesses payroll tax relief immediately. now, mr. president, i'd like to take this opportunity today to speak about the ongoing cause of human rights and democracy in russia. these are not issues that we hear much about from the current russian government, unfortunately, unless it is to denounce those russian citizens who aspire to these universal values. i had an opportunity the other week to meet with one of these brave russian champions of human rights, human dignity and freedom, a man by the name of boris netzoff.

i know that several other people and other members of congress had a similar opportunity to speak with him. mr. nemsof is but one of the many russians who believes their country deserves a government that enhances the human rights of its people and a rule of law that allows citizens to hold their leaders accountable through a real democratic process. this saturday, march 20, many russian human rights activists are planning public demonstrations all across their great country. i might add, at great risk, since there's very little doubt the russian government may even -- will forcibly repress some of these public demonstrations which will be peaceful. i asked mr. nemsoff what we in washington could do to support the cause of human rights in russia, and he simply said

"speak up for it and speak up for us. " it is my pleasure to do that today. now the russian government will take whatever i say here and similar things said by others and try to paint russia's champion of human rights and democracy as puppets and proxies of the united states. of course they would say and do the exact same thing, even if no american spoke up for the human rights of russia's citizens. so we should refrain from internalizing the kremlin's talking points especially when russians themselves are requesting our moral support for their cause. because the fact is this isn't about particular individuals or particular demonstrations held this week or any week in russia. this is about universal values. values that we in the united states embody but do not own, values that should shape the conduct of every government, be it ours or russia's or any other country's. and when we see

citizens of conviction seeking to hold their governments to the higher standard of human rights, we should speak up for them. this is all the more necessary when we realize the obstacles those citizens face, especially in russia. i'd like to read a passage from the 2009 country report on human rights practices which was recently released by our state department. here's how they described the human rights situation in russia, and i quote -- "direct and indirect government interference in local and regional elections restricted the ability of citizens to change their government through free and fair elections." quote -- "during the year, there were a number of high-profile killings of human rights activists by unknown persons, apparently for reasons related to their professional activities. there were numerous reports that law enforcement personnel engaged in physical abuse of subjects, prison conditions were

harsh and could be life-threatening. a journalist, many of whom -- eight journalists, many of whom reported critically on the government, were killed during the year. with one exception, the government failed to identify or arrest or prosecute any subjects. beating and intimidation of journalists remain a problem. the government's limited freedom of assembly and police sometimes used violence to prevent groups from engaging in peaceful unrest. it will be very interesting to see how the police and the government treat these demonstrations that will take place across russia on march 20. these conditions would be intolerable in any country, and this conduct would be unacceptable for any government. clearly, russia today is not the soviet union, neither in its treatment of russia's people, nor in its foreign policy, but i fear that may be damning with

feint praise, and russians themselves are right to want to hold their country and their government up to higher standards. russia's a great nation. like all americans of goodwill, i want russia to be strong and successful. i want russia's economy to be a vibrant source of wealth and opportunity for all russians. i want russia to play a proud and responsible role in world affairs, and i will continue to affirm in public and in private that the best way for russians to secure the things they say they care about most, reduce corruption, -- reduce corruption, equitable modernization is by nurturing a pluralistic and free civil society by building independent and sustainable institutions of democracy, and by respecting the human rights of all. i was happy to see that russian political parties not aligned with the kremlin actually won more seats in regional parliamentary elections this

week. perhaps this signals a growing recognition among russians that the authoritarian tendencies of the kremlin need to be rolled back from popular opposition. perhaps the russian government could allow future elections at all levels to be freer and fairer. perhaps. there is still a long way to go for the cause of democracy in russia, and i hope these small electoral gains only embolden democracy's defenders. as we speak up for the rights of russia's dissidents, we must do the same for the rights of russia's neighbors as well. neighbors like the country of georgia. i visited georgia in january, and i had a chance to travel to the so-called administrative boundary line with the breakaway region of akazia. on the other side of that breakaway line is sovereign georgian territory occupied by russian troops, as it has been

since the 2008 invasion. when i was in munich last month for an annual security conference, i heard several russian officials speaking from the same script alleging acts of aggression by georgian forces against russian peacekeepers. the same kind of rhetoric we heard before the 2008 invasion. this should give us all pause. i know that washington has a lot of foreign policy challenges at the moment, but we cannot forget georgia and the support it deserves amid a continuing threat from its neighbor to the north. a russian government that better protects the human dignity of its people would be more inclined to deal with its neighbors in peace and mutual respect, and that's why we should all say a silent prayer and a public word of support for russia's courageous human rights activists as they make their voices heard this saturday. these brave men and women want

the best for their country. they want a government that is not only strong but just, peaceful, inclusive and democratic. i urge russia's leaders to recognize that peaceful champions of universal values are not a threat to russia and that groups like this should not face the kinds of violence, oppression, and intimidation that russian authorities have used against similar demonstrators in the past. the eyes of the world will be watching. mr. president, i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call: