mr. toomey? >> no. >> mr. toomey, no. >> mr. tuberville? >> no. >> mr. tuberville, no. >> mr. van hollins? >> aye. >> mr. val hollen, aye. mr. warner? >> aye. >> mr. warnock? >> aye. >> miss warren? >> aye. >> mr. white house? mr. whitehouse, aye. mr. wicker? >> no. mr. widen? >> aye. mr. young? >> mr. young, no. >> all right, everyone, we've taken a listen to the ayes and the noes, and it's gone very, very much along party lines, as we bring back in nbc's garrett haake. garrett, i listened john manchin got the aye. when murkowski came along there was a bit of a pause, what is she going to do? she voted no. i know there was a lot of pressure, right, a lot of pressure on her to keep with the coalition -- to keep the coalition together. by the way, did you hear the final tally vote? i think my audio was cut. did you hear it? >> no, i don't think it's been called yet. sometimes they leave these things open. it is possible we have a senator who wasn't in the room as they started so we may still be waiting for a final vote to be gaveled in here. you know, the murkowski vote is a li

mr. toomey: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. : reserving the right to object, my friend, the senator from oregon, suggested that senate rules precluded this provision from being addressed in the recently passed bill. it's actually a little bit more complicated than that. so let's remember how we got here. last year republicans and democrats worked together, and we peaced five bills adding up to about $4 trillion authorizing another several trillion dollars of loans. it was an extraordinary reaction to an extraordinary moment. and republicans and democrats came together time appeared time again. as the circumstances were change ago, we passed new legislation to reflect that. passinga big bill, a trillion-dollar bill nearly, in december. but as soon as our democratic colleagues had the ability, they decided they weren't interested in any bipartisan legislation anymore. it was going to be strictly democrats using the reconciliation process, and that is the only reason that this provision couldn't be addressed because it can't be dea

mr. chairman and thank ranking member, toomey, too, for having this hearing and all the witnesses who have testified. and i would just tell you this, mr. deloss, montana is a long ways away from pennsylvania, but i tell you, we like good food there, too. come on down anytime you can expand this venture that you've got going, but cocongratulation. my question is for jessica milano. they really do dovetail into somewhat senator haggerty was asking you, and it deals with the state small business credit initiative. and following the last economic crisis, this was incredibly successful in montana. so successful that montana is often used as an example in how this program can benefit small businesses and the communities they reside. i've been pushing the last year to help use this program again to address the current crisis we're in. i've been hearing consistently from ly available vaccine to struggle. for some of the small businesses federal programs so far have met their needs. one of the great benefits of the program is the economic development organizations are able to address specific needs

mr. chairman, ranking member toomey, members of the committee. congratulations to both these nominees, mr. chopra and mr. guentzler for being nominated. and i'm thrilled to join my partner and senior senator from maryland ben cardin in recommending strongly to the committee gary guentzler to chair the securities and exchange commission. senator cardin has covered his maryland roots. gary is a good and dear friend. but for the purposes of today's hearing, the most important thing are his stellar qualifications and great judgment. gary guentzler is somebody who combines a brilliant mind with a good heart and excellent judgment. he does have the expertise to take on this important responsibility at this time. and i'm absolutely confident that if confirmed he will serve our country admirably and well in this position. in the state of maryland, mr. guentzler was the chairman of the maryland financial consumer protection commission where he earned a reputation for championing the consumers' interests with respect to students, veterans, and service membe

mr. toomey: mr.resident, i rise to oppose the nomination of marcia fudge as secretary of housing and urban development. the cabinet of secretaries is one of the most important constitutional functions we have here in the senate. i think most of my colleagues would agree that one of the important considerations is that cabinet officials can be relied upon to coordinate and work productively with congress as they implement the policies of the legislation that we pass. i'm concerned that representative fudge's past rhetoric makes clear that she lacks the temperament to collaborate with congress, particularly across the aisle with republican members, and it casts doubt -- her comments cast doubt on whether she even wants to. congresswoman fudge has made multiple statements throughout the year attacking and disparaging the integrity of republicans with whom she hayes policy disagreements. policy disagreements are reasonable, they happen every day. they are expected especially in the legislative body. but

mr. toomey: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from pennsylvania. mr. toomey: thank you, madam president. the circumstances that we face today on -- in the senate are so disturbing. this is really, really unbelievable. i mean there's so much good news out there on the health care front, on the -- on the pandemic front, on the economic front, but what we're going to do in this chamber is absolutely -- absolutely appalling. the members of this chamber came together five times last year and passed overwhelmingly bipartisan bills to deal with this pandemic, to deal with the economic crisis that came from the lockdown that we experienced, five times. about $4 trillion, completely unprecedented in scope, in scale, the nature of it. never imagined before. but we did it. we did it because we needed to and we came together. i think the biggest of the bills passed -- the biggest by far without a single no vote in this chamber. completely bipartisan. so president biden gets elected, gives a great speech, great inaugural speech about uniting the country, coming toge

toomey: we found that materiality -- mr.we found that materiality is defined as what investors make decisions on whether to invest or not, to vote yes or no. i think many investors, well over 40% of investors in those proxy votes, actually think that would be material to get such information. sen. toomey: so even though it is completely insignificant, couldn't possibly affect any financial results whatsoever, you think it might be ok to mandate that disclosure enda: -- that disclosure? mr. gensler: i will be grounded in economic analysis and the court view of what reasonable investors want in a significant mix. sen. toomey: but if this is financially insignificant information, and some investors would like to have it, why not leave it up to the companies to decide whether to disclose it and thereby ingratiate themselves with investors who care about it? mr. gensler: senator, i think it is about investors making a choice as to what is significant or what is material, to be more accurate, what is material for those investors.

mr. chairman. toomey: i'll now introduce today's witnesses. in the owner in which they will testify pretty the president ceo of baltimore community lending, she has more than 30 years and experience in making finance and economic development and affordable housing. welcome. and the founder and ceo taking over a popular restaurant that started it is a pop-up window in neighborhood and syllabus and expanded to westerville, westlake in northeast ohio. he will expand in other places as well. it and both of my daughter elisabeth and young men in my office by the name of andy, and jessica a small business majority in senior advisory pretty she fears today their personal capacity. she previously served as a deputy assistant secretary for small business community development housing policy department of treasury. and as a senior advisor to the administration of u.s. small business administration. mr. joe griffith the research fellow and an institute of the heritage foundation and previously worked as a director for state fiscal reform at the american

toomey. >> thank you, mr. chairman.welcome to the committee and i know this is not your decision but i do have to express how deeply disappointed i am that president biden and our democratic colleagues have decided to undertake a purely partisan process to pass a bill so much confidence that has nothing to do with covid or economic recovery despite the fact that last year congress passed five overwhelmingly bipartisan bills in response to the pandemic and economic disaster we face, those bills add up to almost $4 trillion, each one got over 90 votes, the last bill, the second largest economic relief bill in american history was about eight weeks ago, hundreds of billions of dollars still unspent, the economy is in a strong recovery mode and there are pockets that are doing very bad on balance in aggregate, the economy is doing very, very well. despite all that, rather than working with republicans on identifying the areas left behind, despite all this massive spending, the approach is just ignore republicans from a part

mr. chairman, i yield back. >> thank you, senator lummis. senator smith from minnesota. >> thank you chair brownley and ranking member toomey, and i want to just welcome mr. gensler, mr. shumpert to the committee. with a wonderful to have a chance to visit with you a little bit over the last few weeks. i think you both bring outstanding credentials and experience to these roles and i look forward to supporting your confirmation. so thank you for being with us. i want to just start with mr. chopra. i want to talk with your little bit about the issue of student loans and federal student loan servicing, if we could. so prior to the pandemic i heard from a lot of minnesotans. this is an issue around the country, with struggling to pay to student loans and struggling especially to get into and then stay enrolled in income driven repayment plans and the public service loan forgiveness program. program. these are teachers and firefighters, people that are interested in public service. i'm really grateful that the biden-harris administration has put federal student loans on pause until september, and i am very concerned about the ongoing challenges ha

toomey: thank you, mr. chairman.nks for holding this hearing the title of which is the income and wealth inequality crisis in america. i think we ought to start with asking ourselves is this really a crisis is that the way we should think about, especially the most recent trends and -- in wealth and income inequality. i want to start with the chart that mr. reich has provided us . he refers to it as the wage and salary income has dropped as a percent of gdp and this is the chart he provides in his testimony and you know if you look at it it does look like you know, it is a declining trend. that sure looks like it is declining. what is interesting is he chose not to provide all of the data available. he cuts off the data in 2018. the data for 2019 and 2020 are available. so let's take a look at what the picture looks like if you include all of the available data. if you include all of the available data, what you notice is it is the same graph except we have this very significant uptick, and in fact, it is an upward t

ranking member toomey >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you to chair powell and secretary yellen for appearing today. a year ago, our economy and markets were roiled by the covid-19 pandemic and government ordered business shutdowns. we saw extraordinary turmoil in credit markets that threatened the ability of households, businesses, states, and municipalities to obtain credit. this turmoil presented the very real threat of a full-blown depression that could have taken years to recover from. in response, congress passed the cares act to provide temporary relief to help the country weather a temporary storm. it was an extraordinary response to an extraordinary situation. thankfully, it proved effective and we are now well on the way to a complete recovery. the vaccine is being administered at a rate of over 2 million doses a day, states are reopening, and gdp is set to reach pre-pandemic levels as soon as this month, far earlier than cbo or the fed originally projected. the economy has been in full recovery mode since last summer

. >> thank you, madame secretary ranking member toomey is recognized >> thank you, mr.you pick up almost any newspaper in towns across pennsylvania in the last week or so, a prominent story has been recurring all across the state that is the story of mayors and township commissioners and county commissioners meeting to try to figure out what in the world they're going to do with this mountain of cash that just got dropped on them after having collected all the revenue they expected last year in some cases it's 50% of their entire budget really, just extraordinary. my question i'll start with chairman powell. and what i like to do, mr. chairman, is follow up on a conversation we had last week. i want to kind of understand how the recent fed projections fit together in some ways there are some apparent outliers, at least it appears that way to me i'm referring to the fed's recent revisions, economic forecasting revisions have a very significant upward revision in gdp growth, 6.5% i think is your real gdp number for this year not inconsistent with where a lot of private ec

an interesting exchange yesterday during his confirmation if hearings with pat toomey, the senator for pennsylvania, where mries to start disclosing stuff about their adherence to progressive causes like clean energy investments, diversity, how much money they may give to, for social justice causes. also how much money they give to lobbyists and other things. so it's clear there's going to be a political bent to this sec chair. what i understand, what i'm getting from my sources on capitol hill close to the senate is that the republicans plan to fight back, neil. they're going to do that mainly through the appropriations process. remember, the sec is funded by the senate. they need 60 votes to approve the sec's budget. that's where they believe they could hold -- the republicans believe with a 50-50 divided senate, they could hold gensler's feet to the tour. they're also going to mount a public campaign. i think you're going to hear more from pat toomey in the weeks and months to come about that very issue. i will say this, the sec may go leftist on these issues, it may force a ton more disclosure. they're g

senator toomey, if pat is with us. >> thank you, mr. chairman. can you hear me okay?> yeah, a little bit louder if you could. you're low. >> can you hear me okay now? >> not much better. >> what country are you in? >> um -- i'm in the strange country called washington, d.c. i'll try to speak more loudly and hopefully this will be audible. >> we're good now. >> okay. great. thanks for joining us. thanks for your testimony. i just -- just -- i think it would be helpful to understand a little bit about your business model and how it compares to some of the other big players in your space. costco had a recent s.e.c. filing in which you state -- and i'll quote this. it's not too long. you say, because the hours of operation are shorter than other retailers, and due to other efficiencies inherent in a warehouse type operation, labor costs are the lower -- are lower relative to the volume of sales. merchandise is generally stored on wracks above the sells floor and displayed on pallets containing large quantities, reducing labor requirements. so, from what little i know abou

toomey: i see i am out of time, thanks you mr. chairman. sen. reed: it thank you very much. welcome madam secretary, good to see you. we are all interested in getting everyone back to work, but you have indicated recently that it could be a full year before we reach full employment. in that interim, would you support and hands unemployment benefits? i think the american rescue plan has done a great deal to help the unemployed, but that effort i think should continue. your views please? sec. yellen: i think while unemployment remains high, and it is important to provide a supplementary relief in the arp. and, that begins to expire i believe in the fall, when i believe the economy will be getting back on its feet. people who have raised concerns about whether or not this additional aid will the terror -- deter people from going back to work, that is not an issue when unemployment is as high as it is now, and studies that have been done suggest that people receiving this have been accepting jobs, and it has not deterred work. i think it is appropriate as the economy recovers, a

toomey: i see i am out of time. thank you, mr. chairman. sen. brown: thank you.ator reid from rhode island is recognized. sen. reed: thank you very much, mr. chairman. welcome, madam secretary. good to see you. we are all interested in getting everyone back to work. you have indicated recently that it could be a full year until we reach full employment. in that interim, would you support enhanced unemployment benefits? i think the american rescue plan has done a great deal to help the unemployed, but that effort i think should continue. sec. yellen: i think unemployment remains high, and it is important to provide the supplementary relief in the arp, and that begins to expire i believe in the fall, when i believe the economy will be getting back on its feet. people who have raised concerns about whether or not this additional aid will deter people from going back to work, it is certainly not an issue when unemployment is as high as it is now, and studies that have been done suggest that people receiving this have been accepting jobs. it has not deterred work. but

mr. lau, i have a question for you because i joined with senator toomey and last year we passed the hong kong accountability act which provided additional authorities for the president of the united states to sanction officials responsible for the cracktown and taking away freedom and democracy in hong kong. the prior administration, i used that for some targeted measures against individuals. i was pleased to see that the biden administration issued some sanctioned against those in russia who have been very instrumental in the crackdown on navalny, and we're urging the biden administration now to take similar steps with respect to a further crackdown on hong congress. as you said, 47 democracy activists, you know, have been detained and threatened. the sanctions authority allows for sanctions not only against individuals but also banks that bank those individuals, the banks that those individuals rely on. do you think it would be productive if the biden administration both imposed further sanctions on individuals responsible for the crackdown but also used that authority to sanction some

mr. chairman wt to thank all three witnesses for their powerful testimony and the courageous actions in support of freedom and democracy. joining with senator toomeyo pass the hong kong accountability act and with the crackdown to take away freedom and democracy in hong kong the prior administration use that for targeted measures against individuals is pleased to see the biden administrationh issued sanctions and those in russia were very instrumental in the crackdown and were urging the biden administration to take similar steps with respect to a further crackdown and hong kong. to be detained and threatened. and the banks that they rely on. >> do you think it would be productive if it imposed further sanctions on those responsible for the crackdown? and those that they do business with? >> thank youth for the question. and for those individuals responsible. really impose it o individual level. i agree that the level of sanctions on chinese officials should be expanded and on the other hand sanctions on cooperation which is including the chinese communist party on human rights violations is also important because sometimes these business, they ar

mr. toomey, proposes amendment numbered 1010 to amendment numbered 891. mr. toomey: i ask unanimous consent for two minutes of debate equally divided and that senator daines be added as a cosponsor. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. toomey: thank you, mr. president. my amendment would simply strike the section that provides such sums as may be necessary to make payments of 120% of outstanding debts to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. there are only two retirements to get this money. one is to have a usda farm loan -- and there is billions of dollars worth out there -- and the other is you must be a member of a favored racial or ethnic group, including african american, hispanic, asian americans and some others. there is no income test, no asset test. it doesn't matter whether you are rich or poor. you don't have to have experienced any harm of any kind whatsoever including from covid. you just have to be the right race. the senior senator from michigan called this provision an important piece of reparations. this bill is supposed to be