stabenow: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. ms. stabenow: mr. president -- mr. president, let me indicate that we're talking about a motion to waive less than 1% of this bill. it's an emergency bill. it's a supplemental. it's less than 1%. in terms of the overall scope of what's before us, it's small. but i can tell you in small towns and in cities all across america, this is a big deal. we have up to three million people that in some way work with our automobile industry. we have small businesses all across this country that are looking at this vote. we have had colleagues come to the floor. we have had hearings held, letters and press releases about helping dealers at this time. this is the moment. this is the moment and the vote

stabenow: i ask unanimous consent to speak in morning business. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. ms. stabenow: i come to the floor to respond to my friend the distinguished ranking member well. rick, yesterday the news broke obviously that sammy sosa's name is reportedly one of the 104 that tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs. that was in '03. you are a beloved or you are beloved by cubs' fans for what you did. there you know sosa, as well. how much does this affect his legacy? >> >> wow. reich, yeah i don't even know where to start. the first thought they had was of being disappointed, how sad i thought this was. i remember a few years ago when he got caught with a corked bat, i went into the trainer's room at wrigley and said, "what happened?" with tears in his eyes, he said, during batting practice they want me to put on a show. he said, i had this one bat i did that with. i've got to be honest, right now i question a lot of things, but again, this is a preliminary report. let's wait until we get all the facts.

i just -- senator mccain, senator grassley, senator stabenow and myself in fact president obama was a co-sponsor of the legislation last year. he has included in his budget a provision for this kind of legislation. >> will the senators please move their conversation outside? senator from north dakota. >> as i indicated, then senator obama last year was a co-sponsor of our legislation. we had over 30 senators republicans and democrats who believe the same thing and that was we ought to allow the american consumer to access fda approved prescription drugs and not from other countries, not because we want them to shop and other countries but we believe the ability to do so would put downward pressure on prescription drug prices in the country. madam president, if i might by consent jody still bottles to a describe what we are talking about this is lipitor produced in ireland, same pill in the same ball by the same company just shipped in different directions. even the ball is identical accept one is a blue label and one is a red label. one of them went to canada. one of them into the uni

government and honesty in leadership act authored by senator reid and senator durbin and senator stabenow is a cosponsor of it, which said "don't put into conference reports things that are extraneous and aren't paid for." yet this does exactly that. will it affect the troops in the field? no. this bill will pass, now, if this point of order is sustained, this bill will pass this house and fully fund the troops. and then it will go back to the house of representatives and i cannot believe under any scenario that the house of representatives is not going to vote to fund the troops in the field; that they're going to hold funding of the troops in the field hostage to spending $1 billion and adding $1 billion of new debt on a extraneous bill that is about buying old cars. that doesn't even pass the smell test being credible. the bill will pass the house and be sent to the president probably before the day is out. that's the way it should be. that's why this rule, this point of order, was put in place. that's why the senator from illinois, working with the senator from nevada, the leaders on

sponsor was senator reid, and its second sponsor was senator durbin, senator schumer, and senator stabenow. and the bill was structured for the purposes of not allowing what happened with this defense bill, which is people air-drop into it special interest legislation, unpaid for, in this case. it's called rule 44. i believe it's section 8. and it says essentially in a conference, you cannot put in new language which was not part of that conference and which is targeted, direct spending for the purposes of benefiting some defined group. in this case, for the purposes of passing the cash for clunker bill. you can't put it in. that's what the rule says. and why was it created? because too often around here, this type of mismanagement of our finances occurs. people go into a conference, they know that they've got a train that's going to leave the station -- in this case, everybody around here wants to support our troops in the field and we know we're going to fund them -- and so they put in the conference all sofort all sortsf extraneous things which are inappropriate to that bill. and it bec

i have been to debbie stabenow. i have been to gary peters office, who works for the financial committee, and nothing has been done. host: i'm going to jump in because it is hard for us to do with individual problem the program. for comments on policy and what is in the news, let's go to louisville, ky. bob is calling on our independent line. caller: thank you very much. my name is bob and i have been involved in three businesses. the first one was heavily regulated by the federal government if you think the federal government is there to help you in any business that you involved in, you are not because they are sold -- you are nuts. there are so heavy handed, they will micromanage our business until there is no business. the second one is the auto industry. i have been in finance sales management, the whole 9 yards, closing, everything to the third is the housing industry. i will tell you, when they talk about community reinvestment act, fannie and freddie and all this good stuff, i went to the real estate and saw

would indulge me there are two elements we have worked on with senator mikulski incentive it in a stabenowlike to move to an amendment which hasn't worked out. >> wait, there are amendments. you had a greg amendment nine related to share in decision making and you had greg an amendment 10 related to data collection. >> those are agreed to. we will just except those only get a quorum and now an offer the brennan and 35. >> can we hand out? and as soon as one more member shows up we will cover these amendments that have already been discussed. >> what page? >> which title is this? >> it goes to title to generally, title three anti-war generally. >> it is the gao review of the activities of those titles. >> we now -- and to have 10 or 12 here? we only have 10. we're still missing people. >> i can talk about it if you don't mind. >> go ahead and give max mr. chairman, as we all know and the president has made the point and is totally inappropriate, one of the average has to be to reduce the cost of health care and the rate of a growth and cost over the years because we are basing -- >> [inaudi