harkin: mr. president, the debt ceiling agreement that will soon come before the senate is a clear and present danger to the fragile, indeed faltering economic recovery. to say that this is the wrong policy at the wrong time is a gross understatement. you have to ask the question is anyone paying attention? we just learned that economic growth fell to a 1.3% annual rate in the second quarter and the first quarter growth was revised downward sharply to .4%, virtually flat. the economy created a meager 15,000 jobs in the month of june, again flat, barely even keeping up with population growth. last month, nearly 25 million americans could not find full-time employment. let me repeat that. 25 million americans are effectively out of work. state and local governments continue to slash funding and jobs at a stunning pace, destroying an estimated 500,000 jobs in the last two years. let me repeat that. in the last two years, state and local governments have destroyed an estimated 500,000 jobs. now, thos

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or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't like tom harkin welcomes a big. and yet. first. let's not forget that we are quite right. i think. well. we never got as they're going to say get ready for freedom. and it's time for sides told time a warden goes to texas governor rick perry so the republican has only been in the twenty twelve presidential race for a week he's already made several gaffes say perry is a good texas good old boy he says things that way for thinking shoots from the hip if you will so apparently we're also right before thinking because last november the governor released that the two hundred forty page book makes the argument that medicare social security and other inside of the programs violate the constitution but now that perry is on the national stage his book is being dissected for info on how presidents. how president perry would govern and that has the perry campaign a little worried the just nine days after becoming a candidate rick perry scheme is now trying to disavow his own book the one just released nine mont

hello i'm tom harkin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture we survived the great d.c. earthquake that only just barely is the epicenter of yesterday's quake was near a nuclear power plant i'll tell you how we just barely missed a pushing like disaster right here and here the nation's capital and a looks like mission accomplished for president obama on the libya crisis but republicans are not ready to give the president any credit at all and according to a new wiki leaks cables master wonder just whose side the republicans were on from the beginning obama's are good office. you need to know this the concerns raised by yesterday's five point nine earthquake here in the virginia d.c. area are still reverberating long after the quake itself in a few small aftershocks are over today schools and government buildings are closed in washington d.c. out of fear of aftershocks and damage has been discovered at the national cathedral and the washington monument was the largest earthquake to strike fo

are on facebook at tom underscore our on our blogs message boards telephone comment line and tom harkin dot com and don't forget democracy begins when you get out there and get active tag your it simo.

thank you all right well at the beginning of his bloody year in afghanistan tom harkin laid out his views on me in family of the u.s. strategy they're calling for an end to america's longest war and surprisingly president obama didn't listen to tom and here we are with nearly three hundred more american soldiers unfortunately that. since the american media by and large refuses to devote more than four percent of its news coverage of this ongoing conflict now the largest or exceeding the longest war in american history the truth about afghanistan will still be unknown to the majority of the rest of us the truth is this these numbers came from piece the tom hayden show over common dreams. and other sites as well that you know those were his mention we're spending sixteen billion dollars a month sixteen billion dollars a month in afghanistan and what does it bind us the number of soldiers we have rooted since the afghan war started nine thousand nine hundred seventy one including iraq forty one thousand american soldiers wounded. the number of soldiers killed in afghanistan fourteen hundred

i really don't know, senator harkin. thank you for the question because there is no definitive information about exchanges at this point that i can read about i can't really comment on what the exchanges will do for me. i've done my best to try to research that, and even working for the consumer commerce it is difficult to find that information. >> states are sitting at the exchange is now. i don't know where kentucky is right now on that, but states are in the process of setting up those exchanges right now. but i think the law basically sets out how those exchanges are to operate. again, i don't know kentucky. i can only tell you that in a worse state where we have two insurance carriers have 80% of the market there is not much competition, and there is not much transparency. so that when the exchange comes up, a lot of small businesses that have few employees will be able to go on that. let me also ask you right now small businesses can get a tax credit for the purchases of what they put in for their employees, right?

and senator harkin a few days ago said about the president, quote, i'm upset that obama doesn't seize the moment. that's what great presidents do in times of crisis. they exert executive leadership. he went wobbly in the knees. >> i know the president faced a tea party opposition in the house that was willing to, one, contrive a crisis because we had never had for raising the debt ceiling any conditions. this was the first time in american history that has happened. secondly, they were willing to bring the american economy to the brink of disaster. faced with that i understand some of the president's choices. but the reality is i wish that we had made the case a couple of months ago. i wish the president created a line in the sand then. i wish those of us who raiseded question of raising the debt ceiling was a moment we had the congress, both democrats in the house and senate would have raised as republicans were frothing for the top tier race to continue. that didn't happen. so we're faced with what we are now. the question is how do we get america back to work, new jerseyans back to

john lewis, it harkins back to the civil rights movement seen his fair share of violence, hugged gabrielleely teared up and hugged nancy pelosi afterwards. and speaker boehner greeted her privately off to the side of the floor. nancy pelosi and debbie wasserman schultz kept it a state secret. it certainly was to to turn in to a wonderful absolute surprise considering all that has gone on in terms of partisanship. >> the headline of has been giffords returns, not the house of representatives just passed the biggest definite reduction package in history over a lot of democratic opposition. who knew this was going to happen and did they know it was going to bigger news than the vote count in the

>> senator harkin, in oregon, since we have high medical loss ratios, i don't think the medical loss ratio will make a big difference. i am not as familiar with other states in terms of medical loss ratios. it certainly could have an impact in other states. >> in other states that -- minnesota has over 90% medical loss ratio. that is because oregon and minnesota are high-value states. parts of -- one thing i believe is going to bring down the bench in the cost kerf is -- the bend in the cost is we will -- incentivize states that have high value cost. senator hatch, earlier said the purpose of the health care reform was not to reduce the rate of growth of premiums but to reduce premiums. i don't think that is the case. i don't think anybody ever said that the purpose of health care reform that we were saying to reduce premiums. and sometimes i hear that from opponents of health reform who say that premiums went up and we were told that they would go down. no, we did not say that premiums would go down. we said that the rate of growth of premiums would go down. that was the goal at lea

>> i really do not know, senator harkin. there is no definitive information about exchanges at this point that i can read about. i cannot comment on what the exchanges will do for me. i have done my best to research that. i've worked city chamber of commerce. it is difficult to find that information. >> i do not know where kentucky is on that but states are in the process of setting up those exchanges. i think the law sets out how those exchanges are to operate. again, i do not know kentucky. in our state, two two insurers have 80% of the market. there is not much transparency or competition. let me also ask you, right now small businesses can get a tax credit. for the purchases of their, for what it couldn't for their employees -- what they put in for their employees. are you taking advantage of the tax credits? >> no, sir. we do not qualify. >> you are over the $50,000. you do not get the tax credit. but you will be able to shop on the exchange. >> according to the law. we try to plan business in one and two-year increment

>> i really do not know, senator cardin -- harkin. there is no definitive information about exchanges that i can read about. i have done my best to try to research that. even working with the chamber of congress, is -- chamber of commerce, it is difficult to find information about that. >> the law sets out how those exchanges are to operate. i do not know kentucky. in our state, where we have two insurance carriers that had 80% of the market, there is not much competition and not much transparency. when the exchanges come up, a lot of small businesses will be able to go on that. let me also ask you -- right now, small businesses can get a tax credits for the purchases -- for what they have put in for their employees. up to 50 employees. you do not have 50 employees. are you taking advantage of the tax credit? .> no, sir we pay our employees too well. >> so you do not get the tax credit. but you will be able to shop on the exchange. >> we try to plan business in one and two year increments. not having information on it makes it difficu

kirsten gillibrand, senator harkin from iowa, senator lautenberg and ben nelson who, you mentioned, isfor re-election in nebraska. of -- so there you have the breakdown. that's a significant vote. there were some thought that it wouldn't get over 70, and it's 74-26. now it heads right to the white moving -- compromise and moving forward and probably about jobs. we should point out that the treasury secretary sent, set this as the de235u89 day. -- default day. there was a lot of back and forth about whether that, in fact, was the day and whether the treasury secretary paid bills. so we should point out that throughout all of this there was questions about that, but there were no questions that if you miss this day, something probably would have happened on the economy front that could have been devastating to a very weak and fragile economy that we have currently. jon: weak and getting weaker, or so some of today's numbers would seem. bret baier, thanks. jenna: awaiting the president, here we have the wrap-up of the vote. mike emanuel is standing by in the halls of congress there, mike,

>> i really don't know, senator harkin, thank you for the question. because there's no definitive information about exchanges at this point that i can read about. i can't really comment on what the exchanges will do for me. i've done my best to try to research that. and even working through the chamber of commerce, it's difficult to find that information. >> states are setting up the exchanges now. i don't know where kentucky is right now on that. but states are in process of setting up exchanges right now. but i think the law basically sets out how those exchanges are to operate. again, i don't know kentucky. i can only tell you that in our state where we have two insurance carriers that have 80% of the market there's not much competition and there's not much transparency. so that when the exchanges come up, a lot of small businesses that have fewer employees will be able to go on that. let me also ask you, right now small businesses can get a tax credit for the purchases of -- for what they put in for their employees, right? how many employees? up t

we speak with a fellow named tom harkin, does a great job, and we talked to a couple million people, and every week somebody raises this issue. the issue they raised is why is it the republicans are so tough they don't compromise and democrats compromise all the time. that's the question they raise and just look at what has happened in the last year. in terms of what this book is about, but the republicans said is okay, there are several million people whose unemployment compensation is going to expire, but we don't want to extend unemployment. and unless you give us -- by the way, that was a historical because historical the when unemployment was above a certain level where we are right now, generally they wouldn't buy the partisan support for extending unemployment. we are not going to do it. well, that's terrible. you've got to do it. okay, we will do it, but this is what we need from you. we need to expand the bush tax breaks for the wealthiest people. we need to lower the tax rate on the state tax which goes to the very wealthiest people, top three tenths of 1%, have to bring th

we speak with a fellow named tom harkin, does a great job, and we talked to a couple million people, and every week somebody raises this issue. the issue they raised is why is it the republicans are so tough they don't compromise and democrats compromise all the time. that's the question they raise and just look at what has happened in the last year. in terms of what this book is about, but the republicans said is okay, there are several million people whose unemployment compensation is going to expire, but we don't want to extend unemployment. and unless you give us -- by the way, that was a historical because historical the when unemployment was above a certain level where we are right now, generally they wouldn't buy the partisan support for extending unemployment. we are not going to do it. well, that's terrible. you've got to do it. okay, we will do it, but this is what we need from you. we need to expand the bush tax breaks for the wealthiest people. we need to lower the tax rate on the state tax which goes to the very wealthiest people, top three tenths of 1%, have to bring th

my statement highlights key findings from a report requested by chairman harkin and senator feinstein that the g.a.o. is releasing today. it requires state oversight of health insurance premium rates in 2010 and changes that states that received h.h.s. review grants have begun making to enhance their oversight. for this report, we surveyed officials from the insurance departments of all 50 states and the district of columbia. we also conducted interviews with insurance department officials and other experts and reviewed the grant review applications submitted to h.h.s. we found that oversight of health insurance premium rates varied among states in 2010. while 48 of the 50 state officials responded to our survey reported that they reviewed rate filings in 2010, the practices reported by state insurance officials varied in three key areas. first, there was variation in terms of the timing of rate filing reviews. specifically, respondents from 38 states reported that all reviewed rate filings were reviewed before the rates took effect while other respondents reported reviewing summary f

we speak with a fellow named tom harkin, does a great job, and we talked to a couple million people, and every week somebody raises this issue. the issue they raised is why is it the republicans are so tough they don't compromise and democrats compromise all the time. that's the question they raise and just look at what has happened in the last year. in terms of what this book is about, but the republicans said is okay, there are several million people whose unemployment compensation is going to expire, but we don't want to extend unemployment. and unless you give us -- by the way, that was a historical because historical the when unemployment was above a certain level where we are right now, generally they wouldn't buy the partisan support for extending unemployment. we are not going to do it. well, that's terrible. you've got to do it. okay, we will do it, but this is what we need from you. we need to expand the bush tax breaks for the wealthiest people. we need to lower the tax rate on the state tax which goes to the very wealthiest people, top three tenths of 1%, have to bring th

senators at the time such as biden, harkin, coal or even you, doma and representative at the time likentative schumer and driven as their members of the house at that time did not support doma to express disapproval of gay and lesbian people. and neither did i. marriage is an institution that serves the same public purpose all over the world. to foster change that can result in procreation. creates incentives for husbands and wives to support each other and their children. it takes is more to benefit children than adults. although many marriages do not involve children. societies all over the world recognize the numerous reasons to extend special recognition to traditional marriage. i never thought that i would have to ever defend traditional marriage. it's been the foundations of societies for 6000 years. not only here but around the world. and it is what civilizations have been built on. support for traditional marriage cannot be viewed in a vacuum. over the last 50 years marriage has changed very dramatically. perhaps the divorce laws, inheritance laws, criminal loss of that kind ne