mr. isakson: madam president? mr. isakson: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. isakson: i ask the quorum call be vitiated. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. isakson: i rise for a minute to talk about trade between the united states and our trading partners around the world. the presiding officer: the senate will be in order. mr. isakson: to make the point of my remarks i ask rhetorically for everybody in the auditorium and the senate chamber for a second to answer the question. are you willing to cut american sales by goods and services by over $2 trillion? i think the answer would be a resounding no. secondly are you ready to diminish or lose 39,800,000 jobs -- the presiding officer: the senate is not in order. will the senators please take their conversations out of the chamber. the senator from georgia. mr. isakson: nobody wants to give up $2.3 billion in american business and everybody wants more jobs nor the middle class. but that's exactly what's going to start to happen if we don't pass t.p.

mr. isakson: mr. president, i have five unanimous consent requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. i ask unanimous consent that these requests be agreed to and these requests be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. isakson: mr. president i know we're close to a vote on the clay hunt suicide prevention bill and as chairman of the veterans committee who has just left the veterans administration this morning after a three-hour meeting with employees i want to tell all the members of the senate how much i appreciate their commitment to this bill, how much i would appreciate their vote in favor of this bill. every day in america 22 veterans commit suicide. every year in america 8,000 veterans commit suicide. 8,000 is more than all who lost their lives in iraq and afghanistan over the last 13 years. suicide is a critical problem in the v.a. and the clay hunt bill really focuses and targets on what we need, more psychiatric care more accountability

mr. isakson: i'd like to add we're glad to have senator reid back. know he had a difficult time in the past few weeks and we're glad you're back and on your feet. mr. president, i'd like to introduce the clay hunt prevention bill. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. isakson: mr. president i want to give you a stark fact and figure. every year 8,000 american veterans take their own life and commit suicide. that's more people, more veterans than were killed in all the conflicts in iraq and afghanistan. we have a major epidemic in america's armed forces because of soft tissue issues of ptsd and t.b.i. this congress and both committees of veterans affairs in the house and senate act and tomorrow will vote on the clay hunt suicide prevention bill and i want to talk about it because it is critically important. when these men and women go overseas and volunteer to serve america and lay their lives on the line with us, many come back with terrible injuries. prosthesis an inability to walk some in wheelchairs. but the stealth disease the one that hu

mr. lazar. senator isakson? >> thank you, mr. chairman and thanks to ranking member murray for having what i think is a very important hearing. i was listening to michael bennet talk a minute ago. i happen to be one of the two remaining members of congress who wrote no child left behind. everybody else has gone on to bigger and better things. and we would all tell you the following. last night when ted kennedy and i and george miller and john boehner were in the basement of the capitol and signed off on the conference committee report, we almost said in unison, you know, if this works, we're going to be in trouble in six years because it's going to be harder and harder to do. so if we had done a reauthorization seven years ago, a lot of the problems that we know are going on right now wouldn't be going on because we would have corrected that. and number two, this is not a defensive speech i'm making here but it's for educational purposes. assessment was very important. disaggregation was very important and no child left behind di

mr. isakson: mr. president i find it tragically ironic that on the same day that the islamic state tragically took the life and murdered a jordanian pilot that the united states senate failed to get a 60-vote majority to vote to move to a motion to proceed to debate the most important issue that's facing the united states of america. i agree with my colleagues that talked about the danger of islamic terrorism the danger of porous borders all the dangers they talked about but you know you can't solve those problems unless you get it to the floor and you debate it. i was elected in 2004. the number-one issue in my campaign in the general election was immigration policy of the united states of america. 11 years later it's still domestically the biggest issue in the state of georgia. we still have a porous border and we know how vulnerable we really are. it is time we move this bill to the floor and fully debate it. i know there are differences of opinion. i know each one of us would do it differently but