Mary Landrieu

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes.

Mrs. LANDRIEU

Mrs. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator from Alaska. I am extremely grateful to both Senators from Florida, Senator LeMieux and Senator Nelson, for their support. We all come here as members of political parties. Some of us come as Independents. But at the end of the day we are here to represent our States. We are here to represent the people who sent us. These Florida Senators are moving around Florida, as my friend is moving around Alaska, as I am moving around Louisiana. We know you cannot go anywhere in this country, from Alaska to Florida-- and that is about as far as we can get, from Alaska to Florida--and not hear of the pain and the fear. It is not just pain, it is downright fear on the part of a small businessperson who does not know when their next paycheck will come. Every Monday morning they go to their small business with three or four employees, they turn the lights on, they crank up the computer, and they look in the eyes of people with whom they have worked shoulder to shoulder and they are thinking, Can I pay them this week? Is anybody not hearing this? I am hearing it. The Senator from Alaska is hearing it. The Senators in Florida are hearing it. What are we going to do, close our ears and walk away, go home for the August recess and say I am sorry, we can't do anything, after we have spent a year and a half since President Obama has been elected, sending billions of dollars to Wall Street, billions of dollars to the automakers, and now it comes time to spend $30 billion--not $700 billion, like TARP, not the billions that went to the automobile dealers--$30 billion? It is a lot of money, but not relative to that-- to our community bankers whom we know by name. Clyde White was in my office yesterday. Bob Tailor was in my office yesterday. I know these men and women. I trust them. These are healthy banks. They did not have derivatives in their portfolios. They did not lend to people they did not know. They did not do the subprime lending. Now it comes time to help them and I have to hear from Republicans that we cannot go there because it might look and smell like TARP. Are they afraid of their own shadows? I don't care what it feels like. It is what it is. This is not TARP. The newspapers are starting to say, ``GOP Resistance.'' I am not even sure why the Republican Party would be against this. Someone said to me: Mary, maybe it is because they don't want anything to succeed so things will be so bad. I said I can't imagine that. We have to do what we can. I understand other people say the other parts of the bill are very good, they are very important. Let me tell you about the big picture. There are two other parts of this bill. One is a $12 billion tax cut part. The other is at the most, if the programs that Olympia and I put together, and we did it as a team--if they work, the experts, say that it will leverage $30 billion in lending--$30 billion. So we have $12 billion in tax cuts, $30 billion-- that is $42 billion. That is a lot of money, two parts. This part, if this part works--which is why I am fighting for it--it is $30 billion but it will leverage $300 billion. This is a big part of this bill and I am not going to leave it on the cutting room floor without a real hard fight. Yes, there are three parts. There are two important but small parts and then there is one core big part. For some reason the Republican Party leadership is saying we don't like this big core part. We want you to go with these two parts. I am saying, you know what, I am not going to do that without a fight, so this is the fight. This is the debate. I want to say I am very thrilled to hear we are winning because we just got a statement from George Voinovich, who was not on the amendment, that says: There is real need out there to provide some money to some of these businesses and get the banks back involved. We've got to start doing something. Voinovich dismissed claims by fellow Republicans, including Snowe and Republican Leader McConnell, that the lending program resembles TARP because it involves Treasury Department loans to banks. Republicans have named it TARP, Jr. ``I don't buy that,'' Voinovich says. ``It's just messaging.'' Thank goodness we have some Senators who can cut through, who are not afraid, who are very direct. Voinovich is one of them. I think we are going to win this fight. I don't know when the vote is going to be but I believe we are going to win because the facts are on our side. Having said that, I want to go back to some things that Senator Snowe said because she is one of the most studious and reliable people. People do follow her. She gave a very good presentation--even though I am opposed to her position. I want to say there were three arguments. There were six she made. There were three I want to counter right now. She said there were no congressional hearings. There were two in the House. She said her estimate was it would cost $6 billion. That might be fine, I don't know. But the only estimate that counts is from CBO and it is $1.1. She said the report of the watchdog--whoever they are, and I am going to find out, May oversight watchdog, said they are not sure the program is going to work. But the Chairman of the Fed, who should know--he is following this pretty closely--said--and I will provide that to the Record--said that it is clear, on July 12, ``it seems clear to me that some creditworthy businesses, including some whose collateral has lost value but whose cash flow remains strong, have difficulty obtaining the credit they need to expand and in some cases even continuing to operate.'' Those are three rebuttals to specific criticism. I also want to say I am happy to hear that if this amendment does get on the bill--there will be other Senators coming down to talk about this later this afternoon--that there might be a willingness, if potentially other amendments could, potentially, be offered, to keep this in this important bill. This is an important piece of this bill. It is not something that we should leave on the cutting room floor. The House has already voted on this. The President spoke about it in the State of the Union. Every small community banking organization, as well as the ABA, the American Bankers Association, supports it. They didn't support TARP. They didn't even like TARP. They lobbied against TARP. The big banks liked TARP because they got all the money, but the community banks--my community bank hated TARP. They didn't want anything to do with it. Do you think they would write me letters of support? They were furious with me when I voted for it. Do you think they would write me letters of support, which I have, saying they are for this program if it was like TARP? I don't think so. I trust my community bankers. I trust my small business people. I don't know what to say about a congressional oversight group that says they are not sure it will work. Heavens, maybe we should give them the benefit of the doubt. That is what we are talking about. Again, I hope this will be a bipartisan bill. ``Community Bankers Support Small-Business Jobs Bill.'' ``Senate Set to Pass Small-Business Jobs Bill.'' These are headlines this morning. This headline, ``Democrats plan to make Republicans vote.'' I didn't want anybody to have to vote on this. I didn't believe we should vote on it because it makes so much sense, but, because the Republicans want us to vote on it, we are going to vote on it. I wouldn't want to vote against small business if I were them, but maybe they do. ``Senate Democrats Plan Aid to Small Businesses Hits GOP Resistance.'' These are not good headlines for the other side. But we will see how debate goes. And let me put up the independent bankers. These are 5,000 community banks. We have them in all of our States: Independent Community Bankers of America. Senator McConnell came to the floor today and said he doesn't like this program. He thinks it might be like TARP. I think I have explained that today, why it is not like TARP. But let's see what the letters to Senator McConnell's office are saying. This is a letter to Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell from the Independent Community Bankers of America: On behalf of the nearly 5,000 Members of the Independent Community Bankers of America, I write to urge you to retain the Small Business Lending Fund in the Small Business Jobs Act. The SBLF is the core component of this legislation and the provision that holds the most promise for small business job creation in the near term. Failure to even consider the SBLF in the Senate would be a missed opportunity that our struggling economy cannot afford. The nation's nearly 8,000 community banks are prolific small business lenders with the community contacts and underwriting expertise to get credit flowing to the small business sector. The SBLF is a bold, fresh proposal that would provide another option for community banks to leverage capital and expand small businesses credit. The $30 billion fund could be leveraged to provide as much as a $300 billion line of credit. We have letter after letter. Let me say one thing because I anticipate my good friend from South Dakota is going to be here to speak against it so I want to say this so he can hear me. If the Democrats had taken the same $30 billion--which we had some support on our side to do direct lending. You know the difference. We could have given $30 billion to the Treasury through SBA. We could have done direct lending. There is a lot of support for that. I have letters in my office that say don't give it to the banks because we are not even sure we trust the small banks. We know we don't trust the large banks. Nobody is giving us money. We think the government could give us money. I said, as a Democrat I might be open to that but I don't think I could get one Republican vote if we did a direct lending program because they will stand up and say: There you go again, giving money to the government to lend. So I say to my people who are dying for this direct lending: No, we can't do direct lending because I don't think we could get one Republican vote. I said: You know what might work is if we let the private sector do the lending because they worship at the altar of the private sector on every bill, every day. So I say to the people over here: I know that you think direct lending would be better. It might be better. I have letters from business owners who are actually mad at their community banks because their community banks are pulling, so they are saying, ``Senator, don't give the money to the community banks,'' but I am trying to find a compromise. So I think, OK, we will structure the program so we go to the private sector to lend. They still come to the floor opposed to it. So the only conclusion I can come up with is they don't want to lend money to small business because they either don't think small business needs it, they don't trust their community bankers to do it, they don't trust the private sector to do it, or they don't think there is any demand out there. I am going to point again to the NFIB study, which is the most conservative organization in America, that says in their own study that 45 percent of the businesses--their own members report--are not able to get all their capital. I don't know what else to say. Maybe that headline is correct: ``GOP, Temporarily Lost Their Way.'' I don't know. I see my colleague from New Hampshire on the floor. Since I have the floor, I want to engage her in a colloquy on this in a moment, because this is a very important issue. She has been extremely helpful as a member of the committee. While she is getting ready, I want to go back to this argument again before others come to the floor. Maybe they want to speak against it. Again, let me ask people listening: What would you do? How would you fashion a bill if you have one group of people who hate the government so bad they won't let the government do anything and you have some people over here who want the government to do everything? So we crafted--Senator Cantwell, Senator Klobuchar, myself--something in the middle, that says OK, we will use the SBA. We will go through the private sector. We have to help our small businesses, and we can't build the kind of coalition we need. So I guess the opponents just say we should not do anything, that we should just sort of go home and everybody go get ready for the election and pat ourselves on the back for sending money to Wall Street, sending money to big banks. But when it came to helping our Main Street banks and our small businesses, we just walked away. Now, again, this bill has three components. It has a small business tax cut, $12 billion of tax cuts. It is not the estate tax cut. It is not the top rate tax cuts. But it is zero percent--you pay zero percent on capital gains earned if you invest in a small business. It accelerates depreciation for small businesses. It is $12 billion directly in the pocket, not of General Motors, not of General Electric, not of IBM, not big companies all over the world and countries, but small companies, $12 billion dollars of tax cuts. So I do not want to hear anybody from the other side saying Democrats are not for tax cuts. We have $12 billion in this bill. We have strengthened some government programs. I know the people on the other side do not think government can do anything well. But government can do some things well. The Small Business Administration is well run and well resourced and supported. It can do very good work for our people. But there is a private sector component. There is a private sector component; that is, depending on our community bankers, that we know. We know their names. We know where they go to church. We know where they live. They know the people in our communities. We can do a private sector approach, giving $30 billion that will leverage $300 billion to get out to America to create jobs. So I hope we will take this opportunity. The Senator from South Dakota has been patient, and he deserves his time to speak, even though he will be on the opposite side. So I am going to relinquish the floor for a few minutes and reserve the right to come back. Let me inquire of the Senator, how long might you need?

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. There is not. But we could enter into one, if you would like. I would be happy to yield up to 10 or 15 minutes.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Then I will continue to speak since I have the floor. I am going to just continue to talk about the bill. I see other colleagues who are coming down to speak about it. I would just like to read some of the letters that have come to my office supporting the provision. This is from the National Bankers Association: Dear Senator Landrieu: I write this letter to you and the Members of the United States Senate in support of the LeMieux-Landrieu amendment. In no segment of the U.S. economy is the need for lending to small business more urgent than in the distressed communities that our banks struggle to serve every day. This recession has hit these communities the hardest. The number of home foreclosures has wreaked havoc on these communities. The small businesses that are the engines for economic activity desperately need access to capital. The U.S. economy will begin to see real growth when small businesses get access to the capital that creates the opportunities for prudent lending. This bill, with your amendment, is a vitally important piece of legislation. I would like to say that again, underlined. They do not have to write letters like this to me. But it says: This bill, with your amendment-- it could have just said: This bill without your amendment, or, this bill with no reference to the amendment. But they go to the effort to say: This bill, with your amendment, is a vitally important piece of legislation. Its swift passage will send a powerful message through the U.S. electorate that Congress is aggressively working with small business to create real economic opportunities and to spur job growth where it is needed the most. Why would they write letters like this? Do you think I sit in my office and draft them and then ask them to send them to me? I do not write these words. My staff does not write these words. They are writing them themselves because what they are saying is, people in America are not hearing anything from Congress about small business and small banks. All we hear about every single day is big business and big banks. This bill gives them hope that we are hearing them, that we are listening, that we are not isolated, and we are trying. This program may not be perfect. But, heavens, it has gotten two congressional hearings. It has gotten a positive score. It has gotten endorsements from every bankers association and almost every small business association we have. I see my colleague is here. Let me just read one more letter. I know she may have a question or two for me. This is the National Association for the Self-Employed. We talk a lot about small business. Let me be very clear with people listening. There are 27 million small businesses in America. If anybody wanted to know, there are 27 million small businesses; 20 million of that 27 million are self-employed. That means there is just one person--it could be a self-employed lawyer, doctor, accountant, et cetera, et cetera, self- employed fisherman, self-employed social worker, or psychiatrist. The small business self-employed, they really struggle because it is just them. So these small businesses we are talking about literally are just from one person, the self-employed; 5 people, 10 people, 20 people. We lose sight of them. They are the ones creating the jobs. They are the ones taking the most risk. They are the ones that have hocked their house, their boat, their car to start the business. They are the ones that depend on this business to work because if it does not, none of their kids go to college. Do you understand that risk? These are the businesses I am fighting for. In these difficult economic climates in which traditional lending institutions have clamped down, the self-employed and microbusiness communities have been hit particularly hard, left without essential sources of operating capital. Now more than ever, America's self-employed community, representing 78 percent of all small business in the United States, needs access to additional credit to weather this economic storm and to grow their business. The National Small Business Association, America's oldest small business advocacy, urges us to support the small jobs bill of 2010 and the LeMieux-Landrieu small business lending fund. After bailing out our big banks and Wall Street, Congress finally has the opportunity to help Main Street. We are going to have opposition from some people on the other side? The small business lending fund is not a bailout for sinking banks. It is a lifeline to small business owners struggling to stay afloat in turbulent economic seas. It is not TARP 202. The small business lending fund is not aimed at helping small banks. It helps the small businesses themselves. The fund is designed to help strong community banks. There is a strength test to participate. The program is not designed to prop up failing firms; it makes loans to solid small businesses struggling to get credit. If we cannot do that in this Congress, I do not know what to do. I ask the Senator, my good friend, perhaps she has some stories or she can think of some things that she could add to this debate to help me try to explain and to get through because, obviously, we are not----

Ms. LANDRIEU. Through the Chair, I would like to ask the Senator from New Hampshire.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I thank the Senator for that question. I would like to respond. I do want to be courteous to the other Members who are on the Senate floor, and if we could get some kind of timeframe, then I would be very open to that. But let me respond to this question. It is an important one because the Senator did not vote for TARP. The Senator from New Hampshire did not vote for TARP. Yet she is here as a cosponsor of this amendment. So it gives us some idea that Members who did not vote for the Troubled Asset Relief Program understand this is completely different. It is for healthy banks, not failing banks. It is for small banks, not large banks. It is for Main Street, not Wall Street. So the Senator is absolutely correct. I know she wants some additional time to speak on the bill. So I would like to ask my good friend from South Dakota, what is his intention? If we can get--I would like to ask unanimous consent that we just go back and forth, 10 minutes each, if that would be OK?

Ms. LANDRIEU. That would be fine. No one was down here except you have been waiting for a while. So I am perfectly happy, through the Chair, to say, if we can come to some agreement, maybe the next 20 minutes on their side, then 10 minutes here, and another 20 there, until we catch up, would be fine with me for the next hour. So 20 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 10 minutes, and then we will continue.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Fifteen minutes each? Through the Chair, may I suggest that we just go back and forth 15 minutes each, until the leadership decides how they want to proceed. I think that would be fair. I know I have been speaking.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I would agree to that. If the Senator wants to have 30 minutes now, then we will alternate, through the Chair, 15 and 15. That is fine. But I would say that this Senator has been on the floor of the Senate all morning. I have given up a lot of other meetings that I could have been at because this issue is very important. There was no one else on the floor most of the time when I was speaking. So I appreciate that. But I think this issue is important enough. I ask unanimous consent, the Senator has said 30 minutes on their side right now, and then we will go 15, 15 for the next couple of hours.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Madam President, I thank the Senator from New York for those very kind words. But I wish to say again I am humbled, actually, to be able to present this amendment because it is quite unusual. Normally a chairman or a chairwoman presents amendments in bills that they themselves wrote. That happens here all the time. This is a very unusual situation. As I said earlier today, I did not write this provision. I didn't know very much about this provision. It was written by Senators such as Senator Murray, Senator Cantwell, and Senator Merkley. They started working on this idea. They are not even members of the Small Business Committee. They started working on this idea and it picked up momentum and the President spoke about the need to get capital to small business. Then all the small business organizations, most all of them, stepped up and said, yes, this is what we need. Then the community bankers and the independent bankers stood up and it snowballed. It has gotten to have a great broad base of support. I am pleased this is a bipartisan amendment with the Senator from Florida--both Senators from Florida have been strong advocates. Senator LeMieux joined me in offering this amendment because, for some inexplicable reason, this was going to be left on the cutting room floor. We managed to get huge bills out here for Wall Street. We managed to get huge bills out here for the automobile companies. But when it came to lifting this smaller bill for small business, it started running into some political rhetoric, some bumper sticker slogans for the next election, some hogwash. I think our small businesses deserve more than bumper sticker slogans, hogwash, and electioneering chatter. So it got me mad. I said, you know what, I didn't write this provision. I am going to learn about this provision, though, because I am not going to have it stomped under by the same people who voted for TARP, voted for the big banks, voted to bail them out but, when it comes to helping small business, want to say there is something wrong with this. That is why we are fighting. I see the Senator from Oregon, who helped draft this provision. The Senator from South Dakota came here and said none of his people are for it. He must not be reading his mail. We have right here the South Dakota Independent Small Bankers--Independent Community Bankers of America, State Community Bank Associations. There are any number of them. I checked. Here we have Independent Community Bankers of South Dakota. The Senator from South Dakota was just here and said no one in South Dakota is for this. He might want to go check his in-box or e-mail or his mail. The bankers of South Dakota I don't think are a very liberal group, I would guess. They are a pretty hearty bunch out there in South Dakota. I don't think they like big, fat government programs. But the reason they are for it is because it is not a government program. It is a Main Street program. It is for small businesses in South Dakota. That is why we are fighting for it. We are not going to go down without a hard fight. I am going to recognize the Senator from Oregon in a minute, but the other thing the Senator from South Dakota said was that he loved this report. He said it. He quoted it. The May Oversight Report, ``Small Business Credit Crunch And The Impact Of TARP.'' The person who wrote this report is a good friend of his, Elizabeth Warren. So he is supporting this report in which Elizabeth Warren said in her view she is not sure this program will work. That is what this report says: She is not sure this program will work. She is entitled to that opinion. But I don't listen to Elizabeth Warren. I don't listen to Washington bureaucrats. I am listening to the small business associations of America. I am listening to the Taco Sisters Restaurant in Lafayette. I know it is a silly name, but it is a very important business to them. I don't care what anybody says about their name, Taco Sisters Restaurant. Katie and Molly Richard dreamed about opening a restaurant. For 24 years they dreamed this dream. Molly convinced her sister Katie to move back home from New Hampshire. She leased a small restaurant on Johnson Street in December of 2008 and opened in February. The restaurant smokes fresh gulf fish and shrimp. When we could actually fish for our shrimp and get our fish, they got it from the gulf. Their restaurant was voted best new restaurant in Acadiana and best lunch spot in Acadiana. Do you know how hard it is to be the best in Louisiana when all of our restaurants are good? These little girls, these women, worked hard. I want to tell the Senators from Alabama and South Dakota, they said: We have good credit, a good business plan, but we have had trouble finding capital to grow our business. I was surprised credit would be so tight for a business like ours . . . [because we are the best.] Our business has seven employees and would like to keep growing. . . . We need capital. And this troop over here wants to tell me that the amendment that Senator LeMieux and I are offering is a government program? This is for community banks. Because they want a bumper sticker to run on in this election they are going to throw the small businesses under the bus? Over my dead body. The National Bankers Association, another very liberal group: In no segment of the U.S. economy is the need for lending to small business more urgent than in the distressed communities that our banks struggle to serve every day. This recession which they did not cause--let me go back here. I feel like I am in Alice in Wonderland. The Senator from Oregon is being patient. Let me get this straight. Big banks, some big banks on Wall Street traded derivatives and entered into major risky finance deals that almost wrecked the entire economy of the world. They, on that side, ran all around themselves when George Bush was President to throw money at them, to help them, and we have restaurants in our districts begging for $10,000 to keep their doors open and they are going to stand there and tell this Senator that my amendment is a government program? This isn't a government program. This is trying to get money to Main Street. If they want to vote against it, go right ahead. This is very clear. You can't hide behind this. There are no 100,000 pages of this bill. It is a very simple program--$30 billion to community banks that are healthy. It is voluntary. All you have to do is lend it to the Taco Sisters Restaurant in Lafayette so they can continue to be the best restaurant, despite the fact of the moratoria so there is a shutdown so there are no more fish in the gulf that we can fish for. These businesses are still trying. Did you hear Senator Cantwell read a story from some small business in her State that had to take out $60,000 on a credit card on which they had to pay 50 percent interest? Do we not hear them? We are trying to give the private sector a solution to put capital in community banks so that small businesses can get a loan at a decent rate and I have to listen to the ranking member of the Banking Committee say he is against it because it didn't go through the Banking Committee. The last couple of things that came out of the Banking Committee have been a little bit problematic for me and many people, so I am glad this didn't come out of the Banking committee. I see the Senator from Oregon. This is in large measure because of the design he has come up with, this idea, with several of my colleagues. I wish I could say I did it, because it is a good one, but I have adopted it because I am not going to leave it on the cutting room floor without a fight. It passed the House. Three Republicans voted for it in the House. Interestingly enough--of course all three of them are up in tough elections and I don't think they wanted to explain how they could vote for TARP, vote for Wall Street, but not vote for small businesses. This could be an interesting debate on the campaign trail. The Senator from Oregon is here. Since he helped to actually write the program--as I said, maybe it is something I am not explaining well. Senator Cantwell is quite the expert. Senator Merkley is quite the expert. Let me turn it over to the Senator. I see Senator Burris from Illinois. Let me ask unanimous consent for the two of them to speak for the next 10 minutes as in morning business, and if a Republican comes we will swap back and forth.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I don't think we are under any time agreement. I think the leadership is coming to talk about how we might vote tonight because we have a couple of very important votes to make tonight, if I could speak for the next 10 minutes.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, before I speak about the underlying amendment, the small business amendment----

Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes, I will.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I don't have the final details, but I understand we will be voting sometime tonight, in the near future, on several different amendments that have to do with potentially the supplemental bill and potentially the small business bill, but the good Senator might wish to check with somebody a little above my pay grade.

Ms. LANDRIEU. I am just in charge of one amendment, but I thank the Senator.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I have spent the better part of this day on the floor with many of my colleagues speaking about the small business jobs bill that is so important, and I would like to give credit to some of my Republican colleagues. They have worked very hard on portions of this bill, and I am very grateful. A portion of it came out of the Small Business Committee with a lot of bipartisan support; a portion came out of the Finance Committee with bipartisan support; and this amendment I am offering is a bipartisan amendment. Senator LeMieux, the Senator from Florida--in fact, both Senators from Florida have been extremely supportive. The Senator from Florida and I are the lead sponsors of an amendment that has over a dozen cosponsors. The Presiding Officer, a member of the Small Business Committee, is a cosponsor of our amendment, and I am so grateful to the Senator from Illinois for his input into the bill. This is a very important amendment to the small business package. The House has already voted on the package of the small business bill. They had a strong vote, and it was a bipartisan vote. Three Republicans voted in the House, including my own Congressman from the city of New Orleans, and the Congressman from Delaware and the Congressman from North Carolina also voted for the small business package with the three components: the $12 billion tax cut for small business--and they most certainly need it--the other part which strengthens the Small Business Administration's programs, and they voted for the Small Business Lending Fund. So that bill, of course, has come over here. Because there was really inexplicable opposition from many of the Republicans, we have had to go into a little different strategy, offering the lending fund amendment separately. I am very confident we will have the 60 votes because Senator LeMieux has stepped up from Florida. I see the other great Senator from Florida on the floor, who has been a great supporter of this amendment. What they know, what I know, what Senator Cantwell knows, what Senator Merkley knows, what the Presiding Officer knows is that without this amendment, small businesses throughout America are still going to have a very difficult time getting the capital they need to expand and grow. Small businesses did not cause this economic meltdown. Our community banks did not cause this economic meltdown. The ripoffs, the meltdown, the dysfunction of our financial system was caused by big banks that took risky positions on instruments they couldn't explain, and then they made up more, and the system collapsed like a house of cards. But do we know who is paying the price, unfortunately, besides the taxpayers? Small businesses and our community banks. Hundreds and hundreds of letters have come from the community banks. This one we will put up said: Majority Leader Reid, Minority Leader McConnell, on behalf of 5,000 members of the Independent Community Bankers, I write to urge you to retain the Small Business Lending Fund in the Small Business Jobs Act. The Small Business Lending Fund is the core component of this legislation and the provision that holds the most promise for small business job creation in the near term. Failure to even consider the SBLF in the Senate would be a missed opportunity that our struggling economy cannot afford. The Nation's nearly 8,000 community banks are prolific small business lenders. A report I submitted for the Record earlier said this: We gave--and many Republicans in this Chamber gave--lots of money to the big banks. Do my colleagues know what they did? They cut their lending to small business. These small banks that hardly got anything from TARP tried to keep lending the best they could. But then we sent them more regulations, their capital is getting squeezed, and if we don't provide additional capital to healthy banks, we are not going to get lending to small business. That is what these community bankers are saying. The opposition has come to the floor and said this is TARP II. Let me say again, this is for Main Street. We have a Main Street sign. This is for Main Street. This is for small business. TARP is the Troubled Asset Relief Program, $700 billion for big banks on Wall Street. This is a Main Street program for healthy banks to lend to small businesses that are on Main Street. It is a $30 billion program that will earn, according to the CBO, $1 billion. It doesn't cost the taxpayer as TARP did; it saves the taxpayer money, and it actually puts $1.1 billion into the Treasury at the end of 10 years. That is what the CBO score said. Two people came down--one, Senator Snowe, for whom I have a lot of respect, and the other, the Senator from South Dakota--both came down and said: But our estimate is that it will cost $6 billion. I appreciate their estimates, but the only estimate we go by in this Chamber is CBO. They are entitled to their own estimates, but I want people to know that the only score that matters is the official CBO score. We have the official CBO score. It doesn't cost money; it makes $1.1 billion. They are entitled to their opinion. So it is not TARP, it does not cost the taxpayer money, and it most certainly is not a bailout for banks. It is a help to small banks. The other thing I heard--and I see the Senator from Michigan, and I know she wishes to speak on this as well, and potentially the Senator from Florida--the other amazing argument I heard from the Senator from South Dakota was that this is another Democratic government program. I told the Senator from South Dakota--with all due respect, through the Chair, I said: If we had to take out the words ``big government,'' ``taxes,'' and ``regulations,'' nobody on the other side could finish a sentence. This is not a government program; this is a program to give capital to community banks. As the Presiding Officer knows, there was a version of this that came to my attention, as the Senator from Michigan will know, that said: Let's not go through community banks. Let's do the direct lending. Let's just give it to the Small Business Administration, $30 billion, and let them lend to small businesses because some banks are lending, some banks aren't. Small businesses are so desperate. All they have is high-interest-rate credit cards. Let's do direct lending. And silly me said: You know, we really want bipartisan support for this, and I just don't think I am going to be able to convince one Republican--even though I think it might work, I don't think I am going to be able to convince them to go through a direct lending program for the government. So I had to go tell about 10 Democrats who were very upset: I am sorry, I don't think we can do that. But I do think we can do a private sector lending approach that might work. So I have to sit here and listen to some Republicans come to the floor today and say to me that this is not a private sector approach. It is ludicrous. It is, on its face, a private sector approach. These are not banks run by the government. These are private sector banks, run by our friends in our communities. We see them at the Kiwanis, Rotary, in church and synagogues; we talk to them every day. But the Republicans don't want to help community banks and small businesses. The same Senator, from South Dakota, who came down here to say this was like TARP, voted for TARP. This isn't TARP. This is a program to help small business. I see the Senator from Michigan--and we are going to vote in a minute.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes, I yield to the cosponsor of the amendment.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Absolutely.

Ms. LANDRIEU. We have had three Senators come to the floor. The Senator, the ranking member of the committee is here now, Senator Snowe. I have the greatest respect for the Senator. She outlined a few points that she has concerns about. I will come back to that in a minute. There were only two other Senators who came to the floor--the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from South Dakota. From what I could gather, they think--the Senators said they thought this was sort of like TARP. I tried to explain to them that, first of all, TARP was a $700 billion fund for banks that had troubled assets. This is a $30 billion fund for healthy banks to lend to small business. There were lots of bankers opposed to TARP. I tried to say to them in this case every banking organization that we know of, national organization, and the majority of the State bankers--not all; I want to be clear--the majority are all for it. So we are having a difficult time. There may be some questions about the cost. It gets into a lot of detail. The Senator from Maine raised that issue. Our score, I said, is what I go by. The Senator knows it will generate $1.1 billion for this program.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Yes.

Ms. LANDRIEU. As I turn the floor over to the Senator from Florida to speak about our small business lending amendment, let me say, again--I could not say it any more clearly--small firms--and this chart is from 1993 to 2009--small firms in America, those between 1 employee and 499 employees, created 65 percent of the jobs. Only 35 percent of the jobs were created by large firms. These numbers on this chart pertain to the last decade. I say to the Presiding Officer, you used to be a banker in Illinois. You have a great deal of expertise here, and I think your own experience would tell you if we updated this chart--which we do not have the figures to do--I think this 65 percent would be increased substantially because the people out there creating jobs are small businesses. We have seen news article after news article, just in the last couple weeks--the front page of the Washington Post, the front page of the New York Times--headlines: Big Firms Hoarding Cash; headlines: Big Banks Hoarding Cash. I guess so. They have gotten a lot of cash from this Congress. But it is the small businesses out there that are struggling to get capital to create jobs, and it is the small, healthy community banks that are out there battling with them to create jobs to revitalize their communities and increase demand. So let's keep our eyes on this chart, and let's keep our minds focused on one clear fact: Small business in America is the most powerful job-creation engine, and right now we have to put a little fuel in that tank. That fuel is capital to healthy community banks that can then leverage the power of those healthy community banks to get money to small businesses at reasonable rates--not credit card rates at 24 percent, 16 percent, not payday lender rates that are at 30 percent, sometimes 50 percent but at reasonable rates--with reasonable terms so they can create jobs. That is why the Senator from Florida and I are on the floor. I would like to yield the next 10 or 15 minutes to the Senator from Florida, Mr. LeMieux, the cosponsor of this amendment.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from Florida for his excellent explanation using real stories and terrific visuals because he just painted a picture for us about what those empty shopping centers look like. We have seen those in our own States as well. He is absolutely correct. If we don't do anything, the problem is, they are going to stay empty. We just can't wish it to change. We have to act in a way that will help it change. That is what this bill is about. Again, this is not a big government solution. This is a potential solution that holds a lot of promise based on strengthening relationships that already exist that are basically in the private sector. That is what this effort is. It is exactly as the Senator from Florida outlined. He spoke about--and he is right--one of the arguments we have heard which we can't seem to understand. If there is somebody who can explain this, they should come to the floor and help us. We keep hearing: This is like TARP. So I wish to take just 1 minute to explain the differences in as simple a way as I can. TARP stands for Troubled Asset Relief Program. It was $700 billion. It was a program that George Bush fashioned initially and was continued through this administration to give money to big banks that were getting ready to fail. I wish to say that again: $700 billion, fashioned first by the Bush administration, available to big banks that were failing and that many people were opposed to. This program is not $700 billion, it is $30 billion. It is not going to big banks on Wall Street; it is going to small banks on Main Street. The TARP money went to banks that were failing. This is going to healthy banks that are trying their best to lend; that want to help their communities to revitalize. So if anyone thinks this is like TARP, please come talk to me because I could explain how it is not anything like TARP. I can show my colleagues many letters and many documents, starting with one, and then I will turn it over to the Senator from Minnesota. One of the main reasons it is not like TARP is because there were a lot of bankers who were opposed to TARP. They didn't like the government intrusion. They didn't like the rules and regulations. One could argue it was necessary, but many bankers weren't for it. This letter I am holding--and I will have it blown up--is from the Independent Community Bankers of America. They represent 5,000 independent banks--5,000. I am just going to read the first paragraph of this letter that they sent to Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell. This is a letter they sent to Leader Reid and to Mitch McConnell, minority leader of the Senate. It reads: On behalf of the nearly 5,000 members of the Independent Community Bankers, I write to urge you to retain the Small Business Lending Fund in the Small Business Jobs Act. The SBLF is the core component of this legislation and the provision that holds the most promise for small business creation in the near term. Failure to even consider the SBLF in the Senate would be a missed opportunity that our struggling economy cannot afford. Let me go on because this is important: The Nation's nearly 8,000 community banks are prolific small business lenders with community contact, underwriting expertise. The SBLF is a bold, fresh approach that would provide another option for community banks to leverage capital and expand credit to small business. I can't understand one reason to not support this. This is the core of this bill. The bill will be somewhat empty without it. This is the core of the bill. So we are going to put this on this bill, and we are going to urge our colleagues to then understand that the bill will then be whole and we can all join together and vote for this very important bill and this very important amendment. I am going to specifically answer the arguments raised by the minority leader on the floor in his very brief comments this morning. He made four arguments, and I will try to address each and every one in just a moment. Before I do, I will ask the Senator from Minnesota, who is a cosponsor of this lending provision and an actual designer and creator of one of the key components of it--because Minnesota, like Louisiana--we may be in different parts of the country, but our businesses depend on exports. Whether you are at the head of the Mississippi River or the foot of the Mississippi River, which we both represent in this Nation, and we often talk to each other about how narrow it is up in Minnesota and how wide and wonderful it is in both places, both north and south. But it really does connect us because it is all about exports and trade. So I wish to recognize my friend, the Senator from Minnesota, who will talk about the export provision of this amendment and why it so crucial.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for the beautiful stories she shared from her State. It makes this all so real. It is. It seems as if sometimes it is not when we debate these bills on the floor. But it is so real--the outcome of what we do on the ground in the States that we represent, and in these small towns. I will remember Matt's story. I am going to share the speeches that I give around my State, and how incredible it is that a young child would present an idea to a father and the father is smart enough to recognize what a good idea it was and took it and built a business, and through a great strategic partnership with the father, a private business owner, and a very willing Federal employee, found a program that works to build his business, now with up to 55 employees. That happens all over the country. It happens in Louisiana. Speaking about Louisiana, I will read what our bankers at home--the bankers in my State--say about this program. I read the letter to Mitch McConnell and to Harry Reid, delivered by the 5,000 community banks in the Nation that are strongly supportive of this small business lending fund-- community banks that know these businesses. They are standing there watching them and, in many instances, suffering and not able to give them the support they need because of the credit constraints that were so beautifully expressed by Senator LeMieux, as falling real estate values have put the original capital that was their collateral in the bank in some jeopardy, or it has to be scored in a different way. This bill will help. That is why bankers all over the country are supporting it. Let me say what my bankers, who are normally a more conservative group--they don't agree on everything this Congress has done, either when Republicans or Democrats are in charge; they tend to be more conservative. They don't like big government and a lot of regulation and intrusion. This is what they have said on behalf of their small businesses: On behalf of the members of Louisiana bankers, I am writing to express our support for the small business lending fund. Treasury would invest in community banks from this program that would be separate and apart from the Troubled Asset Relief Program. This legislation would serve as another voluntary tool for community banks to meet the needs of small business. Meeting the needs of these borrowers has been more difficult as regulators pressure many banks to increase their capital-to-asset ratios. Given the severity of the downturn, it is difficult, if not impossible, for community banks to find new sources of capital. Thus, the only option for many banks is to shrink, which can mean making fewer loans. This lending provision would allow banks to avoid that result, continue to meet the needs of their communities. With an improving economy and public investment, such as those proposed, lending can increase faster in some of the hardest-hit areas of our country. The Louisiana bankers would know about this, because we are in one of the hardest hit areas. Not only is the recession affecting us like everybody else, but if we haven't noticed lately, there is a lot of oil out in the gulf because of a tragic, unprecedented accident. The Gulf Coast community is struggling almost more than any other region of the country because of it. Now because we have constrictions on drilling-- which I don't agree with but which are in place--we are finding employment harder to come by and businesses struggling even more. So our Louisiana bankers know this. They have sent letters to myself and to the junior Senator from Louisiana, Senator Vitter, asking us to please be supportive of community banks, saying you have done a lot to help the big banks and Wall Street, so please help us. That is what this amendment is about. I am going to yield the floor for a few moments. I will come back within the next 30 minutes or so and continue this debate this afternoon. We are on the small business bill. The pending amendment is the LeMieux-Landrieu-Nelson from Florida-Merkley-Boxer-Cantwell-Murray- Whitehouse, and other Members are joining us as cosponsors of this amendment. Senator Burris from Illinois is also joining us on this amendment. We are picking up support as organizations express themselves today to Senators, saying how important this small business lending fund is. It could leverage $30 billion. It will earn a billion dollars for the taxpayers, which is an attractive characteristic. It doesn't cost anything and it actually makes money, as any smart banker and business wants to do. It doesn't cost money--well, it costs a little on the front end but makes it back on the back end. It is supported by a growing number of Senators, we hope, on both sides of the aisle. As we continue this debate today, I look forward to answering some of the concerns raised and will try to put those to rest so we can have a very strong vote on this amendment on the underlying bill. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Ms. LANDRIEU

Ms. LANDRIEU. Thank you, Madam President.