Mary Landrieu

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, let me press for a minute on this question, because with all due respect to the minority leader, until we can finally agree on that number, it is going to be hard to figure out a path forward. So my question to the minority leader is, so we can do this in a more public way----

Ms. LANDRIEU. That is exactly what it looks like. The Senator from Illinois has described it accurately. If anybody believes he has not described it accurately, let them come to the floor because he has described the truth. He has said the truth. So I am going to yield right now because others wish to talk, but I thank the Senator from Illinois. This battle is going on, and we intend to win it for Main Street. I hope the other side will get their short list of a few amendments together pretty quickly. I thank the Chair.

Ms. LANDRIEU. That is true.

Ms. LANDRIEU. That is true.

Ms. LANDRIEU. That is a fair characterization.

Ms. LANDRIEU. That is absolutely true. I say to the Senator, in some ways I have some trepidation of continuing to read this because I have had any number of Democrats come to me and say: But there are more Republican provisions in this bill than there are Democratic provisions in the underlying bill. That is a credit to Senator Snowe, I have to say, who worked so hard and does such a good job. But to come to the floor, I say to the Senator from New York, that there are no Republican provisions in this bill, it is laughable.

Ms. LANDRIEU. For whatever reason, I don't know why. I think maybe they think that is good politics. But I don't believe it is, and I don't think most Americans, even Republicans, would think that is good politics.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I see the Senator from Michigan, and I yield to him.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes, it is true.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, how much time is remaining on our side?

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, there are a number of Senators on the floor who wish to speak. I see the Senator from Michigan, who has indicated she would like to speak for a minute on this bill. I will talk for the next 5 minutes, and others are going to want to speak as well. I commend the Senator from Oregon, who has been down here day after day explaining the value of this extraordinary bill that was put together through hours and hours and days and weeks and months of debate in the Finance Committee and in the Small Business Committee. I was very pleased to hear the leadership--although we came to no final agreement in the last hour, I am feeling and hearing, as the Senator from Oregon alluded, that perhaps we are moving closer to that opportunity because this bill was built with good will, with hard work, with some smart and innovative ideas. Just to say how proud I am of the effort, this is just a list of headlines today that have come out in support of this bill. Some of these headlines are questioning, is someone blocking this bill? What is happening? Why can't we get this small business bill done? It is a good question. So it is Thursday night. We have some time to continue to work. The problem with the four amendments that were offered by the minority is that they are not exactly offering side-by-sides to that, but it is better than eight. So we are making some progress. So I am going to stay on the Senate floor tonight and talk about the fact that this bill has, if you count it, actually probably more Republican provisions than Democratic provisions in the bill. They are all good. As the majority leader said, this will be a great victory, not for us but for the small businesses we represent. This will be a great step forward to turn this recovery into a job-filled recovery rather than a jobless recovery because the only entities that will be creating jobs, Mr. President, as you know, because you were a former banker, are small businesses. I want to show the chart about the jobs lost to just repeat this. The job loss in America has been from small businesses. If people want to know what happened to the 15 million jobs, what happened to the 10 million jobs, I will tell you. They ran out the front and back doors and out the windows of small businesses all over this country. If we don't do something, either tonight or tomorrow or next week, they are going to go through another whole month and maybe longer. We have been debating this for a year and a half. It is bipartisan. I believe we are coming to some conclusion, and I am very proud I have helped lead a part of this effort. But I see the Senator from Michigan and one of the members of the Small Business Committee here, and I say to them that I think we are just speaking in morning business. So under the previous order they can be recognized.

Ms. LANDRIEU. But I want to answer again because these small business groups--we have 80 of them and they are counting on us--keep calling and saying: Vote for the bill. Vote for the bill. And what they are hearing from the other side is: We can't vote for the bill until we get amendments. If we try to put too many amendments on this bill, even good ones, it will bring this bill down. We have to find a way to come to an end of the debate, give the small businesses of America a $12 billion tax cut, and strengthen the SBA programs that banks and credit unions use--the small business programs--and then get this special lending program, in partnership with community banks, for the banks that know their community the best, the banks that know the businesses down the street. The Taco Sisters Restaurant in Lafayette, LA--I have used Katy and Molly Richard before, and I would like to repeat some of the things they said. This is in 2008, looking back now--not a great time, but Molly convinced her sister Katy to move back home from New Hampshire and they made their dream come true. They leased a small restaurant on Johnston Street in Lafayette and they opened in February of 2009. They sell wonderful Louisiana products. Molly goes on to say they have seven employees but would like to open more locations. The problem has been getting credit to grow. She says: We have good credit, a good business plan, but have had trouble finding capital to grow our business. I was surprised that credit would be so tight for a business like ours--a short success story but successful nonetheless. Our business has seven employees and would like to keep growing, open more locations. This is the kicker line: Small community banks know businesses in their towns and can create jobs by getting more money out to them. This bill is not about big banks on Wall Street. It is about entering a partnership with banks on Main Street so they can send capital to the businesses across the street. It is a very simple bill, and we are going to work hard--hard--to pass it. On the issue of amendments, again, so we are clear, the minority leader came to the floor earlier today and said something like: The majority leader keeps putting down substitutes, and we don't get to read the substitutes, and we don't know what the substitutes are. Well, I have read the substitutes. I will tell him what they said. Senator Reid came down to the floor and offered the substitute first. He introduced a new substitute because Senators Snowe, Grassley, Enzi, Isakson, and Collins wanted to put the SBA recovery provisions--those are the very popular loan provisions they had in the stimulus package-- the Republican Senators--I am going to repeat their names: Snowe, Grassley, Enzi, Isakson, and Collins--all five Republican Senators wanted to move that provision from a bill that is pending somewhere else into this bill. So the Democratic leader said yes, and he did it. He put that in the substitute, and then offered it as a substitute. That was not good enough. So then five other Republican Senators--I am going to get their names right here--Senators Thune, Johanns, Coburn, Inhofe, and Bond--filed an amendment. The record will show it was amendment No. 4453. Their amendment, led by Senator Thune, was to kill the Small Business Lending Fund. So this is where it really gets interesting. My leader comes to me and says there is a Republican amendment to kill the Small Business Lending Fund, and so he has to accommodate them. I said: But that is the heart of the bill. He says: We still have to accommodate them. So he takes it out of the bill, really against my wishes, but I guess at the time I did not think I had any alternative. That was a Republican amendment. The leader not only accepted it, we did not even have to vote on it. He just did it automatically. Those are two amendments they got that we did not even vote on because the leader did it for them, against my wishes, and against a lot of people's wishes. So we build up again and say: OK, you had to take it out, but we think we have 60 votes to put it back in. And so we did. That is the process. We had 60 votes. We put the lending fund back in. I see the Senator from Florida in the Chamber. He helped to do that. Senator Nelson from Florida helped to put that lending provision back in this bill. Now we have come to sort of a standstill because of that, and maybe because of a few other things. I am figuring this out as we go along. But one thing I have already figured out is, we have to find a way now to pass this bill. The leader has had some very good discussions on the floor--just a couple of hours ago. But I have to defend my leader because when the other side says that Harry Reid, the Senator from Nevada, will not give them amendments, he does more than that. He puts their amendments in his substitutes, which means they do not even have to offer them. He does it for them automatically. So they deserve headlines like this. I hate to say it. They earned them. They tagged themselves with these headlines. Maybe other people around here would not call them out, but I think it is my job as the chairman of this committee because I said when I took this chairmanship that this committee was going to be a champion for small business and we were going to fight hard for them. I offered lots of amendments for them in other bills. Sometimes I was successful; sometimes I wasn't. But I said we would fight for them, and that is what we are going to do. If there was ever a time they needed us to stand up and fight for them, it is now. There was an article in the Washington Post--and I will conclude in a minute. I see the Senator from Florida. This is what our people read. I know not everybody reads the L.A. Times, and I think this came from the L.A. Times, but this was the headline I read and got upset about, and I want to say why I did. I think the small businesspeople in my State sit around and read articles such as this, and when their kids come to the breakfast table I think they fold the article at the breakfast table because they don't want their children to see it because it is very upsetting. Lots of kids can't read; they are young. But a lot of teenagers can. This is what teenagers read. This is by Kenneth Feinberg, who is doing some work in the gulf. He just released a list of firms that gave their top employees bonuses of $1.6 billion. The report found that bonuses and other payments to highly paid executives at Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, and 13 other financial forums were, he said, ill-advised. The payments, more than $10 million in addition to generous annual salaries for some, came as many of the 17 firms suffered huge losses. Feinberg says they were not good. The President says they were lavish bonuses. I don't know what to say about them because I can imagine a small business owner who has borrowed from everybody he knows to keep his business open the last year and a half; he stopped paying himself 8 months ago, and his children are sitting at the table saying: So, Dad, why can't we go on vacation? While they are asking that question, he is reading the headlines about the same companies we gave money to on Wall Street gave bonuses of $10 million or $20 million or $30 million, and he doesn't have $200 to take his kids down the street to the amusement park. Do my colleagues want to know why people in America are mad? I think this might be one reason. They don't understand what Washington is all about. I am not on the committee that has to oversee bonuses. It makes me so mad I don't know what I would do if I were, but I am just pointing this out. While we are here diddling over small business, this is what small business owners are reading, and they are wondering: Has the world turned completely upside down? The same firms that got our money to bail them out get bonuses, and I can't even pay myself or my wife who works for the business or my child a salary for a month. I am telling my colleagues, we better get moving on this bill, or I am not sure what is going to happen to either party when this election comes up because we need to do what is right. We need to do it soon. We know what is right, I think. I believe we do. We have worked hard to put a very smart, good bill together that doesn't increase the deficit by a penny; that provides $12 billion in tax cuts--tax cuts, $12 billion. I know those people on the other side, our friends, say Democrats are never for tax cuts. Well, we have $12 billion in tax cuts paid for in this bill for small business. So to the sisters who started this restaurant in hopes they could depend on us to do some right things for them, for all the small businesses struggling out there, I am saying to them: Just hang on. I know it is hard, but just try to hang on a few more weeks, a few more months if you can, because this bill is going to have a major impact, we hope. We don't know 100 percent for sure, but I can promise you doing nothing is a disaster. This bill has a lot of things we are going to try. Nobody here has a magic wand. But we have loan programs. We have some counseling programs. We have some small bank programs. We have some credit union programs. We are going to just throw it out there carefully, strategically, and hope it hits because if it doesn't, I am kind of running out of ideas because I am not giving any more money to Wall Street. So these are our best ideas for Main Street. I am proud of the work we have done. I see the Senator from Florida. I am going to yield the floor. There may be other Senators who wish to come down and speak. I wish to thank Senator Nelson from Florida who has been a champion. I wish to again thank Senator Merkley, Senator Snowe for her work earlier today. Although we disagree on one small aspect on this bill, we will still work together over this weekend to see what agreement we can come to. I wish to thank Senator Cantwell particularly, and Senator Schumer, Senator Klobuchar, and others who have been terrific--Senator Boxer, Senator Murray. We are going to continue to work over the weekend to see what we can do to say yes to small business in America soon.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I would be happy to.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I would like to follow up on what the Senator from Michigan has said because she has been one of the most forceful voices for trying to find a way to get the Senate to be able to move more quickly on so many important things. She is right. We have to stop saying no every day, and particularly on this day, and start saying yes to small businesses. The sooner we can say yes to small business, the sooner this recession will end, the sooner Americans can get back to work, and the sooner we can begin to put a real downpayment on the deficit that has been caused by reckless policies of the past. She is right. And every day matters. This bill has been debated literally for a year and a half--not on the Senate floor but in committees and meetings and negotiations. As I held up a chart earlier today, most of the provisions in the bill--both from the Finance Committee and the Small Business Committee--were Republican-generated ideas or amendments. As I said, small business has many champions in this Chamber, and we need to show them, not just say we are but actually show them that with our votes. It is going to be a long weekend for some people. I am going to be working all weekend. But it is going to be a long weekend for some who are concerned about image because I am going to submit for the Record, just today, in the last 24 hours, the list of headlines that are coming out around America from papers--conservative papers, liberal papers, independent newspapers--and they are not good for my friends on the other side of the aisle. The Huffington Post, more liberal, of course: ``GOP Filibusters Small Business Bill After Criticizing Dems For Delay.'' But Bloomberg, not that liberal: ``Senate Republicans Block Small Business-Lending Measure.'' Politico, one of our papers here: ``GOP blocks small-businesses bill. CQ: ``Republicans Block Senate Vote on Small-Business Bill.'' An AP article in the Boston Globe: ``Republicans Block Small Business Lending Bill.'' This cannot be good news over the weekend for a group that claims they are very probusiness. A Las Vegas Sun editorial today: ``Helping Main Street--Senate Should Approve Legislation That Could Spark Small Businesses' Growth.'' The Washington Independent: ``Democrats Go Small. GOP Still Says `No.' '' They have said no one too many times. We have to say yes. If we want this recession to end--and I believe we do; I believe all of us do--we know our constituents are counting on us to do good work. So it is going to be a long weekend for whoever's job it is--the staffers over there--to try to get better headlines for their bosses. They are going to be working hard over the weekend. One of the ways we can do that is to get a small list of amendments, like one, two, three, four. The leader, our leader, offered three. It was rejected. We have been talking somewhere now between one and four. I think over the weekend we can figure that out, how to pay for these amendments. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a list of other headlines be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H.R. 5874, received from the House and is at the desk.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Judiciary Committee be discharged from further consideration of S. Res. 592, and the Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table, with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements relating to the resolution be printed in the Record.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to executive session to consider Calendar No. 1000, the nomination of RADM Sandra L. Stosz to serve as Director of the Coast Guard Reserve; that the nomination be confirmed and the motion to reconsider be made and laid upon the table; that upon confirmation, the President be immediately notified of the Senate's action, any statements relating to the nomination be printed in the Record, and the Senate then resume legislative session.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 10 a.m. on Friday, July 30; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day; that following any leader remarks, the Senate proceed to a period of morning business, with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, there will be no rollcall votes during Friday's session of the Senate. Senators should expect the next vote between 5:30 and 5:45 p.m. on Monday, August 2.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. If there is no further business to come before the Senate, I ask unanimous consent that it adjourn under the previous order.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of H. Con. Res. 308, the adjournment resolution, received from the House and at the desk.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the concurrent resolution be agreed to and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.