National Endowment for the Oceans Act

Thank you, Madam President.

We are now on a very important bill, the small business jobs growth bill. It is a bill that actually many of us on both sides of the aisle--from the Small Business Committee to the Finance Committee, to Members who are not members of either one of those committees--have contributed immensely to the building of a bill that we think holds a great deal of promise for small businesses throughout our country that have been beaten and battered. But amazingly, in many places, these businesses, despite all the odds, are hanging on and they are looking for some help.

That is what this bill attempts to do--to build strong partnerships with the private sector, to use the resources that are already out there, most notably, our community banks, our small banks.

There are over 8,000 of them. We have not heard a lot about those banks. I see the Senator from Florida in the Chamber who is going to speak in just a minute. We have not heard a lot about community banks on this floor. All we have heard about are Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, AIG. We have heard about Wall Street and big banks. We have not heard about small community banks and small businesses--the 27 million of them that are struggling in America today.

This bill finally--finally--has reached the floor of the Senate. The House has already passed a very strong bill. It has finally reached the floor of the Senate to give us an opportunity to debate what we can do to help small business and what we can do to strengthen and support our healthy community banks in all our States.

It is an exciting time. I say to the Presiding Officer, I thank her as a member of the Senate Small Business Committee for being a part of this effort. Again, the Small Business Committee, in a bipartisan way, and the Finance Committee, in a bipartisan way, have contributed to this legislation, and we are moving to the final hours of this debate now.

Amendment No. 4500

The Senator from Florida, Mr. LeMieux, and I are offering an amendment which is pending before the Senate now. It is a very important amendment to the underlying bill. The pending amendment is the LeMieux-Landrieu amendment. It has many other cosponsors whom I will submit for the record in a moment. But this amendment that is pending now is a small business lending fund amendment that actually makes $1.1 billion for the Treasury. It earns that much over 10 years. It does not cost the Treasury anything. It earns $1.1 billion. It uses the power of the private sector. It uses the power of our community banks that are on Main Streets--whether it is in Tallulah, LA, Lake Charles, LA, or right down Canal Street in New Orleans or some of the main streets in Florida and other States.

It uses the power of those banks--their knowledge of the small businesses in their communities--and it leverages that powerful relationship to help end this recession. But we have to be about job creation, and the people who are going to create the jobs are small businesses.

(Mr. BURRIS assumed the chair.)

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.

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.

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.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for the next 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I know Members are busy around the Senate today on various committees and special caucus lunches, talking about many aspects of not just this bill but other things that are pending. I thought I would come to the floor while we had this time to make a few general remarks about the small business bill and also specifically about the Small Business Lending Fund which is the amendment that is pending.

The Small Business Lending Fund amendment is a bipartisan amendment by Senator LeMieux of Florida and myself. It is also sponsored by the senior Senator from Florida, Mr. Nelson, Senator Merkley from Oregon, Senator Boxer from California, Senator Cantwell, Senator Murray, Senator Whitehouse, Senator Burris from Illinois. We added Senator Hagan just a few minutes ago as a cosponsor, and we are getting calls regularly, throughout the day, from Senators who want to be a sponsor of this amendment. We believe we have great support on the floor of the Senate, and that support is growing as this debate goes forward and as more people begin to understand that this Small Business Lending Fund is really the core of the small business bill.

There are three pieces of the small business bill. One piece that came out of the Finance Committee on a very strong bipartisan vote, I understand, was a $12 billion targeted tax cut for small businesses in America. There should be listed, I hope on my Web site and other Web sites of the Finance Committee, a list of all those tax cuts. One or two I am very familiar with would be a real advantage to anyone in America who wants to invest in a small business over the course of the next 6 months to a year. You will pay no capital gains if you hold that investment for 5 years; you will pay zero capital gains because that is one of the strategic targeted tax cuts in this bill. In addition, there is accelerated depreciation for small businesses--not for big businesses but for small businesses--so small businesses in America, defined as those businesses with under 500 employees, can write off some of the investments they are making to try to grow their businesses in these difficult times. We want to help them do that. So one important part of this bill is $12 billion in tax cuts to small businesses. This is a very important component.

The other important component came out of the Small Business Committee with a bipartisan vote. It strengthens the core programs within the Small Business Administration. It strengthens the 7(a) Program. It strengthens the 504 Program. These are programs that allow lending to small businesses for commercial real estate. They allow lending for the capital needs of those businesses--for businesses to purchase inventory, to purchase other goods and services necessary to operate their business.

These are longstanding programs that are very well supported on both sides of the aisle and that we find have worked so well we want to double the limits, we want to eliminate the fees, and we want to increase the guarantee from 75 percent to 90 percent. When we did this under the stimulus program a year ago on an emergency basis, we saw the number of loans go up dramatically. That time came to an end, and so in this bill we are reinstating that very successful program that works. Senator Snowe, the ranking member, and I are very supportive of that provision, and that is in the bill.

There are three main pieces. I have talked about two. The third piece is what this amendment represents. The third piece, according to the National Bankers Association, is really the core of the bill. That is according to the community banks, not the big banks on Wall Street but the community banks on Main Street. They have written letters to all of us--to the majority leader, to the minority leader--saying: Please support the Small Business Lending Fund. It is not like TARP, it is completely different, they say, and they are right.

As I said earlier this morning, a little bit of opposition we are hearing even from the minority leader, Mitch McConnell, indicated that one of the reasons that maybe some of the Republicans might not be for this is because this is like TARP. The TARP was a $700 billion bailout to big banks. This is a $30 billion partnership with healthy community banks. TARP was a $700 billion bailout for failing, unhealthy big banks on Wall Street. The small business lending program is $30 billion--much smaller, strategic private sector partnership with small community banks that are on Main Street to keep all of our small businesses open and operating and growing so we can get out of this recession.

I hope the arguments that this is TARP-lite or TARP, Jr., will go away because the facts are so completely different from one program to the other. This is a strong strategic partnership that could have been defined as a bailout. It was a bailout. Some of us think it was necessary, some think it was unnecessary, but it was a bailout. This is not a bailout. This is only going to healthy banks that, because of the falling value of collateral they are holding behind some of those loans because the regulators are looking at it a bit more, giving more scrutiny to banks everywhere--some of that is good and some is a little bit heavyhanded, but nonetheless it is happening--banks are having a hard time generating the capital to have those ratios correct when the regulators come in, and so they are cutting back on lending.

If we want banks to lend to small businesses, we need to help them, and they want us to help them. They are for this. The independent bankers have sent us letters. The community bankers have sent us letters, as well as the American Bankers Association. That is unlike TARP, where there were many banks, even some that received money, that didn't like the program. They didn't like it because there were lots of strings attached. They didn't like it because they thought it would ``ruin their reputations.'' They didn't like it because they didn't want to have to go through stress tests. I understand that. I think the program has worked pretty well, but that was that program. That was 2 years ago. This is now. It is a different initiative. It is not even really a government program; it is a private sector partnership between the Federal Government and taxpayers and their community banks that they know and they trust. They see these bankers at the Rotary Clubs and Kiwanis clubs. They see them in church, they see them in the synagogues, they see them on Main Street. These are the bankers who know their businesses and want to lend to their businesses. They know the businesses that have the potential to grow and those that potentially might not be able to grow. They know the businesses that have readjusted for this economy, this tough economy. We can trust our community bankers.

I am the chair of the Small Business Committee. I have had the most extraordinary opportunity as chair of this committee--on which you serve, I say to the Presiding Officer--to listen to small business owner after small business owner pleading, saying to me things like: Senator, I never missed a payment. Senator, I always sent in my money, and they cut my line of credit. Senator, we are desperate out here. We do not have access to credit. Please help us.

One argument I have heard some others make is based on a study that came

out from the National Federation of Independent Business, the NFIB. I am going to try to get that study in just a minute because I want to respond to that. The NFIB study is quoted sometimes in this debate. Here it is here, the ``Small Business Credit in Deep Recession'' study. It is waved around on the floor by some people who are not sure how they might vote on this amendment because they have heard things. They are not sure, but they say: According to the NFIB, the National Federation of Independent Business, 40 percent of the banks say credit is not a problem. And there is some data here that is going to show that 40 percent of the banks say they were able to get all the loans they needed; 10 percent said they could get almost all the loans they needed. But the rest of the study is what is important. It is about 60 percent who say they could not get it, from the National Federation of Independent Business. Their own study showed that 60 percent of their businesses said they could not get the collateral from the banks that they so desperately need.

I know there is this little argument out there that there are no good businesses to lend to.

We all know that is not true. There are businesses in all of our districts. We are hearing from them. They cannot get credit because of new regulations, because of tightening capital ratios. This is a partnership with banks that has absolutely nothing to do with TARP, big banks, Wall Street, unhealthy banks. It has everything to do with community banks that are less than $10 billion. Those are the only banks that can even apply to be a part of this. It is completely voluntary.

If a community bank in Illinois or Louisiana--and I have talked to some--said, Senator, we are healthy; we have a lot of capital to lend, I have said to them, that is wonderful. Then you do not need to apply for this. But if you want to grow your bank in these times, then it is completely up to you. This will be available to you. You know what, they brighten up. They say, well, we did not realize that. We thought it was going to be something forced. Absolutely not. It is completely voluntary.

So for the NFIB and the 40 percent of their businesses that said they could not get collateral, this is a solution. I am very proud to offer this solution in this way. I also want to say we have letters from, I believe, almost 20 Governors who have said, please help us. We are trying to do everything we can in our State to stimulate growth and development. We are trying to do what we can. So they have sent letters, both Republican and Democratic Governors. A letter I have that I will submit to the Record is from February, from Christine Gregoire, the Governor from Washington State. She writes a very strong letter to Dr. Romer, our economic adviser for President Obama, to Tim Geithner, to Chairman Sheila Bair, saying, this small business lending program is what the State of Washington needs. We are full, she says, of small businesses that are knocking on our doors at the State capital that cannot get credit. We must open the opportunities for them.

If we want our States' economies to grow, which we do, whether it is Washington or California, I say to my good friend from Arizona, or from Tennessee, or from Massachusetts, the way they are going to grow is through small business.

Look at this. From 1993 to 2009, in the last 16 years--I think these numbers would be updated and it would even show more--65 percent of all new jobs in America are created by small business. When we have letters such as this from Governors who say their small businesses cannot get credit, what are we going to do? Sit here and do nothing? I do not think so. I think we should act.

One of the best ideas that has come forward from Republicans and Democrats that has been scrutinized and looked at and torn apart and put back together is a $30 billion small business lending fund that will not create a new government program. This is not lending by the government, this is lending by the private sector.

This is not lending by big banks, who do not lend--by the way, we have seen the bank lending, big bank lending to small business has declined in the last four quarters by 8.1 percent. Think about that. The banks that got all of the money in the last year of the Bush administration and the first year of the Obama administration, the banks that got all of the money, the reports show, cut lending to small business by 8.1 percent.

The banks that did not get any help, the healthy community banks in our States, even in these times have increased the lending to small business because, A, it is smart for them to do so, because when they do it right they make money, which is the whole point of them being in business, and because many of them also believe strongly in the communities in which they have built their business.

They helped build these towns. They do not want to see them take bankruptcy. They helped build the businesses on Main Street. Do you think they are happy to sit there and watch these businesses close up?

But we spent the last 2 years, the last year under Bush and the first year under Obama, bailing out Wall Street. When it comes to helping Main Street, it gets very quiet around here. I wonder why.

That is what this amendment does. We know small business creates jobs. We know there are credible small businesses in all of our States. Even according to the NFIB, even according to their own survey, 40 percent of the businesses said, we did not get all of the credit we need. If we could get it, if we could get credit from our banks, if we could borrow money from our banks, we could grow, even according to this study.

We are very proud of this lending provision in this bill. I think the whole bill is very good. Maybe there are some other amendments that need to be included, that could come from Finance or that might come from someone else. But the core of the bill, the $12 billion in tax cuts for small business, the strengthening of the small business lending programs and contracting programs and surety bond programs, which many of our Members have worked on, and this lending piece is absolutely crucial. It is one of the best things that we could do as a Congress to help small businesses find their footing, to help them get more certainty about the future.

They are the ones that are going to take the risk. We have seen the headlines in the last couple of days. If you are reading the Washington Post, if you are reading the New York Times, if you are reading your hometown newspaper, what do those headlines say? I will tell you what they say: Big business hoarding cash. Big banks sitting on $1.6 trillion in profits. They are sitting on it. They are holding it. They are not lending it.

Do you know who is lending? Do you know who is still lending, or they are trying to lend? The community banks of America. They are desperately trying to lend. And what are we doing? Sitting here not listening to them or not helping them. We must listen to them. I have letters here I have submitted to the Record, independent bankers, community bankers, American bankers: Please help the healthy small banks in America to do the job we want to do for you and end the recession.

When we vote on this amendment, I hope we get a strong vote. I hope people in this Chamber will not turn their backs on the small businesses in their districts and the healthy community banks that have been there for a long time. If we act responsibly, and if we join in partnership with them, and we rely on the private sector savvy that is out there, I think we can make some real headway. That is what I am hoping.

There is no silver bullet. I am not 100 percent positive this is going to work in the way that we think. But I am very confident that it has a great chance of working. Shouldn't we give the benefit of the doubt to our own small businesses and community bankers? A lot of people did not know if TARP worked. A lot of people do not think it worked today. But nobody was saying, oh, well, we are not sure; we should not do it. We rushed on out there and gave billions of dollars to Wall Street, billions of dollars to big banks.

Now when it comes to giving our community banks the benefit of the doubt, when it comes to giving small business people who have risked everything the benefit of the doubt, we are

having some trouble. I do not understand that.

As the chairman of the Small Business Committee, I promised them I would follow in the good footsteps of the former chairs of this committee: Senator Snowe has been an outstanding chair; Senator Kerry has been an outstanding chair; Senator Bond has been an outstanding chair. They have been very strong advocates for small business in America.

When this program came across my desk, I wish I could say I designed it. I would love to take credit for it. But I did not. It was designed by other Senators. But when I saw it, I thought to myself, now this could work. When I heard the President speak about it, I thought, this makes a lot of sense. I thought, my goodness, this sounds like a good idea. The more I looked into it, I became convinced, it is not a good idea, it is an excellent idea. I am not going to leave it on the cutting room floor because of some political argument that makes no sense to me, and it should not make sense to anybody in this Chamber.

I see other colleagues are on the floor to speak. I have exhausted my 10 or 15 minutes. I am happy to yield the floor. And then, of course, I will come back to the floor, to come back to speak about this amendment. I want to say I am very proud of the support of Senator LeMieux, as well as a growing list of other Senators who have come forward to support this amendment and to speak on the bill.

I see the Senator from Arizona and I will yield the floor at this time.

Thank you, Mr. President. I will just be 30 seconds.

I will respond to the comments made by my ranking member. She and I have worked so closely together, and we just have a difference of opinion about this

one particular piece of this bill, which is an important piece, so I will respond to her comments in a minute.

I do agree with one thing she said, which is there could be other amendments offered to maybe make this bill better. But I wish to ask my ranking member through the Chair: This amendment is pending. We are going to vote on this amendment. This amendment could potentially get 60 votes plus. If this amendment is voted in by the will of this Senate, even though she has reservations about it which she has beautifully outlined--as she always does--but if this amendment is on the line and let's say other amendments are offered and some pass and some fail, is she inclined to vote for the bill? This is the only question I am going to ask her.

I will restate it. I said to the Senator from Maine, with whom I have worked very well--we have worked together, but we have a different view about this particular program.

This is an amendment. I agree with her that amendments should be offered on this bill. I am hoping our leadership can work that out. If this amendment is agreed to by 60 plus--we may get 70 votes for this amendment; we don't know. We are picking up support for it. Although some people are opposed, we are getting a good amount of support for it. Does the Senator from Maine believe she could then vote for the bill?

Mr. President, I thank the Senator for those comments. She has left a window of opportunity open for, hopefully, some compromises as we move through the amendments on this bill.

I yield back the floor to the Senator from Rhode Island.

Mr. President, I appreciate the opportunity to get back to the issue at hand, which is the small business bill, a job creation bill for America. It is something that many of us have worked on now for over a year.

This bill has been developed by the work of many committees, both in the House and the Senate, over a long period of time--primarily the Small Business Committee and the Finance Committee, but also members from the Banking Committee and other committees that have been very much giving their input into this final product, which is in its final stage of passage.

This bill passed the House recently with these major components--a very strong, targeted tax cut for small business. The Chair knows how important that is to small businesses in Minnesota that are watching additional regulations come upon them--some for good reasons and some not for good reasons. They are looking at an increased cost of capital. They need tax relief. This bill provides that because of the good work that has come out of the Finance Committee. Out of our Small Business Committee, as the ranking member so eloquently expressed and outlined, came some key measures in the bill that will improve the core programs of the SBA--an agency that is well supported here, particularly on the Democratic side, and even with some Republicans who are supportive of that agency. We believe that by strengthening their programs, we can be of some help to small business in America.

The debate right now is on the small business lending fund. I have the greatest respect for my ranking member. We have a disagreement on this particular provision. I want to respond specifically to some of the criticisms of the program.

First of all, in her arguments against the program--but before I go into that, I want to say how pleased I was to hear--and I believe that the transcript will show this--that she said should this amendment get on with 60-plus votes, and other amendments are potentially offered, she is supportive of the bill. She has some specific suggestions as to how this program could be made better, in her opinion. Maybe we can come to some terms on that. I believe that, in good faith, on major bills such as this we should consider amendments, if we can. This is one of them. This is the first amendment, a bipartisan amendment. Senator LeMieux and I are sponsoring this amendment along with over a dozen other colleagues. Senator Cantwell has been a tremendous advocate of this program, as have Senator Merkley from Oregon, Senator Murray from Washington, Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota, Senator Nelson from Florida, and Senator Schumer. They will come to the floor later this afternoon.

We have a growing list--bipartisan list--with Senator LeMieux and myself and others supporting this small business lending program.

Let me try to answer specifically some of the concerns the Senator from Maine expressed. She said there have not been any hearings on this program. There were two House hearings on this initiative. I am going to get the date for the record. But there were two hearings on this specific small business lending program. In one of those hearings, which I will submit--the House markup--there were more than 16 amendments discussed and debated and offered. So I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that this small business lending program did not receive congressional hearings. It has.

This has also received the attention of the Nation, because the President himself spoke about it in probably one of the most highly publicized speeches a President can give, which is the State of the Union. He spoke to the small businesses of America and to the small healthy banks, and said we are going to try to craft a program to be your partner, to work with you, to get jobs created in America. So this has been discussed in hundreds of press conferences, two congressional hearings, and any number of Senators--particularly I want to say, Senator Merkley, Senator Boxer, and Senator Cantwell have spent hours and hours and hours of their time--days, weeks and months--on this provision, trying to work through any particular arguments that others might have.

I want to put that argument to rest. There have been hearings. I have conducted in my committee probably a dozen hearings on related subjects. I could fill this desk with paper, which I will not do and burden the clerk, with letters and comments and e-mails and testimony from hundreds of business owners who say they can't get capital. Our small businesses need help. We

want to work with our community banks. They ask: Why are you sending all of this money to Wall Street? We need some help right here on Main Street.

Also, the second argument the Senator from Maine made--and again, I have the greatest respect for my ranking member, and she is a good friend--is that she is concerned because the ``watchdog'' does not like this program and thinks that it might be like TARP--the congressional watchdogs. I don't know those watchdogs. I haven't met those watchdogs. I have seen their report, which is here, the May oversight report. I could give you a few summaries from this--that they are not sure this program would work, but maybe we should give the benefit of the doubt to our community bankers, whom we know and trust, and our small businesses.

Ms. Snowe, the Senator from Maine, for whom I have a great deal of respect, was speaking earlier about this provision that is pending before the Senate. It is a small business lending fund. Those of us offering this amendment believe it is time for us to get a focus on Main Street, to take our eyes off Wall Street for a minute and start focusing on Main Street, our small community banks that are trying to do their best to not only stay in business and make money, but they helped in many ways to build the towns and communities, and they are watching the businesses they lent money to close their doors. We would like to be a better partner with these community banks, in a strategic partnership, to help get money to Main Street businesses.

Senator Snowe is saying she has some reservations about this provision, and she outlined about five or six reasons she is not enthusiastic to support it. She said, one, that there were not enough congressional hearings or were not any congressional hearings. For the record, there were two hearings on this issue in the House. They were on May 18 and May 19. There were amendments offered. There was full testimony and full debate. There have been congressional hearings on this proposal. It is a relatively new proposal. It has been changed since it was first talked about over a year and a half ago. In my view, it has been greatly improved, greatly strengthened. There have been congressional hearings.

As I said, there has been a tremendous amount of attention on this issue. The President himself spoke about it in his State of the Union Address. It has been debated in many different ways over the last year.

No. 2, the Senator said her analysis is that this bill will not save $1.1 billion; it will cost $6 billion. I do not know the analysis she conducted. I have great respect for her ability to analyze numbers and understand details. She is one of the best around here. All I can tell my colleagues is, the group we go to, the agency, the authority on scoring that both Republicans and Democrats acknowledge as the authority on scoring has said this bill will save $1.1 billion over 10 years. That is the official CBO score that I am going to submit for the Record. Other people can do a different analysis. That happens around here sometimes. But when it comes down to the bottom line, the Congressional Budget Office is the only score that matters--Mr. President, you know that--and it says this bill earns, saves over 10 years $1.1 billion.

The third argument the Senator made is that the congressional watchdogs are not sure this program will work. This is their report. It is the May oversight report, ``Small Business Credit Crunch and the Impact of TARP.'' She put up a chart that said TARP-like. This is where that came from.

The congressional oversight report said this program, in their view, might be like TARP, and they are not sure there are any creditworthy businesses in America. That is what this watchdog said. They are not sure there are any businesses in America that are creditworthy to lend. That might be their opinion, but I am a Senator from Louisiana. I am listening to my small businesses. I see my small businesses. Many of them are creditworthy, and they most certainly, with a little bit of help from local community banks infusing capital into their business, could grow and expand.

Don't take my word for it. Let's see what Chairman Bernanke says. Chairman Bernanke said--and this was on July 12, 2 weeks ago:

It seems clear that some creditworthy businesses, including

some whose collateral has lost value but whose cash flow

remains strong, have had difficulty obtaining credit that

they need to expand.

This is what the Chairman of the Fed says. He is obviously in a position to see what banks are lending, what banks are not, what he is hearing, he is listening, he is traveling. Maybe there are a few watchdogs and appointees in Washington who are having a little difficulty figuring this out. But if you go to the real streets, if you go to the Main Streets, if you get out of Washington and out of the beltway, you are going to hear many hundreds, thousands of small businesses--and the Chairman himself said there are many creditworthy businesses out there that are having a hard time getting capital. That is what the small business lending program does.

Mr. President, you have heard it yourself. In all our States we are hearing that. Those were some of the arguments the Senator made. I was pleased to hear her say that should the Senate vote on this amendment and get 60-plus votes--which, as we all know now is the way the Senate operates, not by a majority but by a supermajority--if 60 Senators say this is something they want to do to help Main Street, to help small businesses--this is not about Wall Street, it is not about bailouts, it is not about troubled assets, it is not TARP, it is a small business lending fund, a strategic partnership with community banks--if 60 of us say that, then she could be persuaded, if that is the will of the Senate, to pass the bill because there are other portions of this bill that are extremely important as well.

I reiterate the important support we are picking up and to state for the record again the testimony by many business owners. This one comes from Steve Gordon, president of INSTANT-OFF, Inc, in Clearwater, FL, not from Louisiana but from Florida. He writes:

I am the owner of INSTANT-OFF. We make water-saving devices

for faucets. INSTANT-OFF replaces the aerator on any faucet,

and each unit can save up to 10,000 gallons a year. Our

market potential in the U.S. is estimated at 50 million units

and globally between 100 million and 200 million. We can

create 25 green jobs now. Twenty-five percent of those jobs

will be people with disabilities. None of these jobs will be

created without capital if I can't get the loan.

This is a common refrain, whether it is businesses in Florida, Minnesota or Louisiana. All they have are their credit cards which are maxed out. All they have are their credit cards that charge them 12, 16, 18, 24 percent. All these small businesses have is equity in their houses or they did have some equity in their homes to borrow against to start or maintain their businesses. They have seen their home equity diminish considerably. The bank calls them and says: Joe, your house was worth $400,000. We had it as collateral backing up your $200,000 line of credit or $300,000 line of credit. Now your home is half the value. I need to call your line of credit.

Are we not listening?

This small business lending fund, $30 billion, is going to help healthy small banks of $10 billion or less. Goldman Sachs cannot even apply for this money. AIG cannot apply for this money. National banks cannot apply for this money. These are community banks that we know, as the Senator from Florida said, are at our Rotary Clubs, they are at our Kiwanis Clubs, they are at our business owners banquets and luncheons. These are the community bankers we know and trust and they know the businesses in their areas and we know them in our districts and in our States.

The question is: Will the Republicans stand with a majority of Democrats and vote for small businesses? This is the New York Times. This is terrible. I see my friend from South Dakota in the Chamber. This is a terrible headline for his party: ``Senate Democrats' Plan to Aid Small Businesses Hits GOP Resistance.''

This is CQ Today: ``Democrats Plan to Make Republicans Vote on Small- Business Lending Fund.'' We did not have to have this vote. We have been forced to have this vote. Why would we even want to have a vote? After everything we have done to bail out Wall Street, we now come to a plan to lend

money to Main Street and I have to hear from Republican leaders who say no.

``Senate Set to Pass Small-Business Bill.'' The reason we are in this deadlock is because Republican leaders, such as my good friend, have decided that we cannot, after all this, after TARP that was designed by President Bush, extended by President Obama to bail out Wall Street and large banks, now we have to hear: I don't know. We have either run out of energy or run out of will to help Main Street and small businesses.

Yes.

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?

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.

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----

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

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?

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.

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.

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.

Madam President, before my colleague leaves the floor, I want to say I did not realize he was such a fan of Elizabeth Warren. I was really under the impression that he and some of the leaders on that side had some objections to her style of leadership. But they surely have quoted her today because she was the author of this oversight report to which they keep referring. So I am so happy to know that the Senator from South Dakota and the other Senators who have spoken think so much of Elizabeth Warren because she is the one who wrote this report that said this might look like TARP II.

Now, that is what Elizabeth Warren says, and evidently my good friend from South Dakota really appreciates the leadership she is giving on this subject. Because the community bankers--not Elizabeth Warren, not bureaucrats in Washington, whom the Senator from South Dakota is defending--his own community bankers--yes, in South Dakota, his community bankers--wrote to Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell, his leader, on behalf of the nearly 5,000 members of the Independent Community Bankers. A Communist group, a very liberal group this group of independent community bankers is. A big government group independent community bankers are. They have written a letter to the Senator from South Dakota. Evidently, he did not open his mail today.

Madam President, they write:

I urge you to retain the Small Business Lending Fund in the

Small Business Jobs Act. It is the core component of this

legislation.

No, I will not yield.

I will say one thing to the Senator from South Dakota. If I took out the words ``big government,'' ``taxes,'' or ``regulations,'' neither the Senator from South Dakota nor most of the Members on the other side could finish a sentence, because they can't debate a specific. He gets up and starts talking about higher taxes and more regulations. This bill has tax cuts in it. This bill doesn't have any regulations in it. This is a small business lending program. My good friend, the Senator from Alabama, read the statement written by the political operatives beautifully. I am sure I will hear it on the Rush Limbaugh radio program today.

I don't need a speech to read. I have hardly read one thing except the thousands of letters that are pouring in, asking us to help small business. I will say with as much respect as I can to the ranking member of the Banking Committee, because I know I heard him say this bill didn't go through the Banking Committee: I wish to agree, and thank God it didn't. Because you know the last two bills that did? One was TARP I, which nobody likes. Then TARP II came through that committee, and then the big bank regulatory bill came through that committee. So I hope the ranking member isn't trying to convince me or the Republicans that that committee has produced great legislation. I say that with respect to the chairman of the committee. I know he is going to hear this and be aggravated. But to stand up and say because the small business lending bill didn't go through the Banking Committee, which has been roundly criticized by their side for too much regulation, is more than I can stand.

Thank goodness, this didn't go through the Banking Committee. It came straight from the hearts of bankers in our communities and small businesses who don't need any committee in Washington to tell them what is going on at home. They don't need any lobbyists to tell us what is going on. They can't get money. We have given out money to Wall Street. We have given out money to the big auto companies. When it comes to giving out a small $30 billion to our own community banks, the Republicans say no.

Then I have to hear the Senator from Alabama and the Senator from South Dakota--and I want whoever is listening to hear this: They say this is a big government program. The money doesn't even go to the government; it goes to the community banks. It is a voluntary program to community banks, and it then goes to business.

I will say again that there were Democrats who came to me and said--I am the chair of the committee--Senator, we don't trust the private sector. We don't think that if we give them this money, they will lend to our small businesses. Can't you do a direct lending program? There is a lot of support for a direct lending program. But knowing the GOP the way I do, I said to my friends, my colleagues: You know, if I thought I could get one or two or three Republicans for a government direct program, I might do that because it would be more efficient, but they are so mad at the government right now and they have everybody all riled up, so let's do it through our community bankers whom we know, whom they know and support. So we craft the program to be a voluntary private sector lending program to healthy banks, and they want to say no, because, they say, it is like TARP.

Well, let me tell my colleagues one Senator who is a Republican who doesn't think it is TARP, and that is Senator LeMieux from Florida. Another Senator who doesn't think it is TARP is the good Senator from Ohio, George Voinovich, who says it is not TARP.

But the Senator from South Dakota, who came to talk about how we can't

help small business, actually voted for TARP. The Senator who just spoke against this provision voted for TARP, to give money to banks and big banks with no strings attached. Yet he comes to the floor and now he can't help our community banks in their efforts to help small businesses. Every community bank, independent bankers, ABA, they are all supporting this. They didn't support TARP; many of them did not. They were afraid of it. They didn't like it. They still complain about it. This isn't TARP.

I know my colleague is here from the State of Washington. How much more time is remaining?

Madam President, I wish to yield the 8 minutes to the Senator from Washington, who was extremely instrumental in designing this program. Perhaps the Senator knows I am evidently having some difficulty explaining to some of the Senators from the other side how this is not like TARP. Maybe the Senator from Washington can do a better job than I have been able to do. I wish to thank her for coming to the floor. I yield 8 minutes to the Senator from Washington.

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.

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.

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

Yes, I will.

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.

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

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.

Yes, I yield to the cosponsor of the amendment.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. The Senator is correct. He refers to this long list, which I have read several times on the floor. It is quite lengthy. These are not liberal organizations. They are not even Democratic or Republican organizations. They are business organizations, including the American Apparel and Footwear Association, the Arkansas Community Bankers, American Bankers Association, the Marine Retailers--these are conservative-to-center organizations. This isn't the Sierra Club. These are conservative organizations that are supporting this.

This is a private sector approach. It is $30 billion that will multiply to $300 billion. We have boxes of letters from small businesses saying all they have--as the Senator from Michigan knows--is the credit cards that they have to pay 16 to 20 percent on. Senator Cantwell almost choked me up when she said that one of the businesses in her State had to take out a loan at 50 percent. How do you make money when you are borrowing money at 50 percent interest?

We have a program where they can walk down the street and go to their community banks and borrow not from the payday lenders but from the community bank. The Republican caucus wants to tell us this is like TARP so they can put a bumper sticker on their car for the election.

The Senator from Florida is correct. There are any number of conservative organizations from all of their States that are supporting this.

Absolutely, this is a jobs bill. The Senator from Michigan represents a State that has been one of the hardest hit States, the automobile industry. She has firsthand experience there. She knows these numbers as well as I do: From 1993 to 2009, 65 percent of jobs have been created by small business, and only 35 percent of the jobs were created by big business.

If some people are wondering why this recovery seems to be a jobless recovery, it is because it is. Big businesses have a lot of profit right now. Has anybody noticed that the stock market is going up? They are sitting on their cash. Has anybody noticed what Goldman Sachs reported lately? They did very well out of this.

If you want a recovery with jobs, where people can actually go to work, earn a paycheck, and pay taxes to help us get out of this deficit, and stimulate demand, you better support this. I am so tired of hearing the other side, I say to the Senator from Michigan, when they come down here and say: But the NFIB says that there is no demand.

First of all, the National Federation of Independent Business did not say that. So to their credit, I want to say on their behalf--although they have not come out strongly in support, they are not opposing, they are neutral--their own survey said that 40 percent of NFIB'S membership--a very conservative organization--said they didn't need any money. But that leaves 60 percent who said they could not get the loans they had asked for.

So this whole argument that says there is no demand--I want the Senators who vote against this to go back and try to give a speech on Main Street. I challenge you, all of you who might consider voting ``no'' on this amendment, I want to see you go home and stand on any Main Street and try to say to your people--look them straight in the eye and say: We know down here there is no demand. Nobody needs any money because nobody is selling anything, and there is no demand.

Yes, I yield for that purpose.

Yes. It will create many jobs, and maybe we can then have a recovery that has jobs associated with it. That is the effort. We have fashioned this so that it is going to make money for the Treasury. It is not related to TARP funding. It is only for community banks. It is only for small business.

I see the Senator from Michigan. I wish to yield time to her, if she wishes to speak, and then the Senator from Oregon and the Senator from Washington wish to speak as well.

Mr. President, I see several Members on the floor. I am going to speak for 2 minutes, and then Senator Klobuchar for 1 minute, and Senator Merkley for 10; and if somebody else comes, we will put them in the queue. Senator LeMieux may want to add a word.

I ask unanimous consent for that.

This says: Is small business credit in a deep recession? This is the NFIB. They are one of the most conservative business organizations. I want to read to you their executive summary. It says:

Forty percent of small businessowners attempting to borrow

in 2009 had all of their credit needs met.

Forty percent.

Ten percent had most of their needs met.

Let's say that 50 percent had most of their needs met. That means that 50 percent of the 27 million small businesses in America did not have their needs met.

This is not the Sierra Club here. This is the National Federation of Independent Business, one of the most conservative business groups. I don't know who wants to come to the floor and say they don't know what they are talking about. I think they do on this subject, and on others. I don't agree with them on everything, but they are very legitimate when it comes to what their members say. They said that 50 percent did not get their needs met. The financial institutions extending lines of credit during 2009, when the country was operating at a high level--the same survey--a few years earlier, before the recession, said that 90 percent of businesses were finding the credit they needed. That is why we were having great economic times, because small business could get credit.

This is economics 101. This is not complicated. Right now small businesses have credit card debt up to here. They are paying 16 and 24 percent. Maybe that makes the other side happy. They have no equity in their homes to borrow, and here we have a provision trying to give community banks some capital, healthy small banks to lend to small businesses.

We know there is a need. Fifty percent of NFIB's own membership says they cannot get the money they need, and we have to fight?

I see the Senator from Minnesota. She has a very important part of this amendment. I would like to turn the floor over to her.

Mr. President, I appreciate those remarks. A portion of the LeMieux-Landrieu amendment is to step up exports.

The Senator from Oregon has been one of the key designers of this program. He is going to speak about a very important point that we have been debating today. That point is this oversight report that was written by Elizabeth Warren, who now seems to be a very good friend of the other side. She wrote this report, and they held it up saying we have to listen to Elizabeth Warren. It is very interesting because I think they have had some problems with what she has been doing. Nonetheless, they think this report bolsters their argument.

I ask the Senator from Oregon to comment about this report because I think it has been misrepresented. I am confident it has been misrepresented. It basically says it is inconclusive. They are not sure this program is going to work. I will tell you who is sure this program is going to work: our community bankers, our small business associations that have written thousands of letters. Is anyone opening their mail?

I am not going to listen to a bunch of bureaucrats up here who are not sure something is going to work. I would like to listen to the hometown folks, and that is what this amendment is about.

Mr. President, I see the cosponsor of this amendment. I will ask unanimous consent for him to be recognized. But before I do, I wish to ask a question of the Senator from North Carolina. Senator Hagan is on the floor. I would like to pose a question, if I may, because she was a banker, I understand. I would like to ask her if, in her view as a banker--I think it might be interesting to hear from somebody who was actually a banker. Senator Burris was a banker. He spoke--what does she think about this program.

If she was still a banker, would she be interested in accessing this capital from the Treasury and how it might help small businesses in the communities she used to lend to, if she would be so kind as to answer that question.

I thank the Senator from North Carolina, and I ask unanimous consent to yield the next 15 minutes to the Senator from Florida.

Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Florida for his outstanding remarks and for his ability and his willingness to stand for the people of Florida because his State has had a great deal of difficulty, not unlike the State of California.

I see the Senator from California and the Senator from Illinois are on the floor and they want to speak. I would like to turn the next 5 minutes over to the Senator from California, but before I do, I want to respond to something the Senator from Florida said.

The Senator from Florida may not be the only Republican to vote for this amendment because today Senator George Voinovich said he would support the amendment. He is quoted today, if this quote that was reported in the paper is correct, as saying there is a real need out there to provide some money to some of these businesses and to get banks back involved.

He said:

We have got to start doing something. Voinovich dismissed

claims by fellow Republicans, including Snowe and Minority

Leader McConnell, that the lending program resembles TARP

because it involves Treasury Department loans to banks.

Republicans have nicknamed it TARP, Jr. ``I don't buy that,''

Voinovich said. `` That is just messaging.''

As I said, my good friend from Florida may not be the only Republican to stand up and vote for this amendment, and I hope others will because this could mean a great deal to small businesses throughout America. This is for small business, it is for jobs, it is to get this recession over. We have to focus on Main Street.

Mr. President, the Senator from California would like the next 5 minutes.

Mr. President, I see the Senator from Illinois. I will ask unanimous consent for him to speak for 2 to 3 minutes. But before that, I wish to thank the Senator from California. The Senator from Illinois would know this, but this issue, this provision came originally from an idea that Senator Boxer and Senator Merkley had. She deserves a tremendous amount of credit.

Of course, she represents the largest State in the Union. Of course, she represents one of the States that has high unemployment. Of course, she listens to the people of her State and they are saying: Senator, where is the money to create the jobs?

I will submit this for the Record. The Senator from California does not need to see this because she knows it: Jobs lost by small business. Do we want to know why this recession is happening? I wish I had this blown up: 81 percent of the job losses come not from big business, not from Wall Street. I understand Wall Street is having fancy lunches. They had a lot of fancy lunches on Wall Street today. Do you know who is not even eating lunch, there is no brown bag to put it in? Small business. The Senator from California is a great Senator, fighting for her State. She has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country. The Senator from Illinois knows this as well. I thank her for putting this provision forward. I am happy to pick it up and try to carry the ball a little way down the field.

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.

It is not. The Senator is absolutely correct. That is why I spent the majority of this day trying to be responsive to the several arguments that have been raised against it. I thought the Senator from Oregon did a beautiful job, much better than I did, explaining the nuances of this report that has been used to criticize this program.

But again, it is a private sector approach which the other side usually likes. It is community bankers whom we know, to small businesses that we know need the help. I cannot quite understand where this opposition is coming from. I said earlier, if you are looking for a bumper sticker for the election, go look elsewhere. Don't put a bumper sticker on the backs of small business in America. They don't deserve it. The letters are heartbreaking. The letters from Illinois are heartbreaking.

Women who have waited for 20 years while they raised their children finally start their business and I have to hear from the other side they don't like the bumper sticker? This is not about bumper stickers. We have waited a year and a half to get on a bill for small business. The House has already passed this bill.

It is laughable, to try to go home to your district. I don't care whether you are in Arizona or South Dakota or Alabama, you will be laughed out of the townhall meeting if you go home and try to explain that you don't think small business should get money from their local bank. They don't have the money to buy a train ticket to New York.

I mean, this is not funny. So unless somebody comes down here and gives me a relatively good argument--and I have the greatest respect for the Senator from Maine. We have never argued about anything on our committee. This didn't even come to our committee so we never argued about it. We have not argued about one thing because we feel so strongly. But for some reason this has become a political football. She did not make it that way and neither did I. Somebody did, but neither one of us did.

Mr. President, I see other Members on the floor. Senator Burris had spoken earlier. I wish to say there was an organization we failed to mention, but the Minority Bankers of America also have given their support to this. We are getting constant letters of support in.

I can speak for a few more minutes. I don't know if anyone else is interested in speaking. We still do not have a vote on this, so I will continue, I guess.

Yes, to the Senator from Michigan.

The Senator from Michigan is absolutely correct. That is why this is so flabbergasting to me, because the Senator is correct. The TARP, some of us voted for it, some of us did not, but there are some legitimate criticisms of it. I mean, it went to a lot of the big banks, bigger banks. It did go to some middle-sized banks, I will concede that to the opponents. They have pointed that out, that it went to some middle-sized banks.

But what we did not do was connect it to lending. They took the money and they cut the line of credit. We are trying to fix that. This is an amendment to fix what we did not do correctly. This is an amendment supported by bankers, by small businesses. It does not go to big banks. They are not even eligible. It is voluntary. They do not have to take it.

If any Senator wants to vote against this and go home and say: Look, I can only give you credit cards with 16 percent interest--your people in Michigan cannot survive that, the Senator knows. They cannot survive it.

I see the Senator from Maine. In all fairness, we have had a lot of time. I want to yield 1 minute to the Senator from Minnesota. Then I will be happy to yield. We have no time agreements. There are no scheduled votes. I am most certainly not holding up this vote. The leadership is not here. I am not sure when we are voting. I know Members want to leave. I am not holding up the vote. We are ready to go to the vote at any time, but we do not have any agreement to go to the vote.

Mr. President, I am hoping we can vote right now, if possible. I know the Senators all have schedules. The Senator from Maine was very kind to say she could even speak after the vote. I appreciate that everybody has been so patient today. We have had a good debate. We are trying to get to a vote on this bill. We are waiting for the leadership, but people are going to have other appointments. The Senator from Maine has agreed to speak after the vote, which is very nice.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I express my profound gratitude to the Senator from Rhode Island for his leadership on this initiative. It will have far-reaching implications and importance to our most vital resource, the oceans, and all they represent. I look forward to working with him to transform this legislation into a reality that will protect the oceans in perpetuity and understanding and amassing all the resources that are essential to the preservation of the oceans and what they represent to our environment and to the ecosystem and, of course, to the fisheries that are so important to our respective States and to the country. I thank him for his visionary initiative. I am pleased to join him in that effort. Hopefully, we can bring it to fruition in this Congress.

There are a number of issues with respect to the small business legislation pending before the Senate, although pending in a way I would prefer otherwise, given the fact that it addresses the foremost issue facing the country today; that is, jobs and the status of the economy. The economy is not creating the jobs the American people deserve. That is why I joined across the aisle in extending unemployment benefits, because we have a very high unemployment rate of 9.5 percent, with 8 million people having lost their jobs and more than 15 million either unemployed or underemployed. We have not seen the kind of economic growth that will produce the jobs the American people deserve and create the kind of security they deserve as well.

From that standpoint, I thought it was important to extend unemployment benefits. I ultimately think it is important to do what we can for small businesses, as the chairman of the Small Business Committee indicated, the job generators in America. Frankly, I would have hoped we could have considered this legislation long before now. It is certainly long overdue. We are in July. I have been urging from the outset of the year, in January, that we should address this most profound issue when it comes to creating jobs. We clearly have to be concerned about the well-being of small businesses.

The legislation before the Senate has a number of good provisions that will go a long way in creating incentives and helping and buttressing this key component of America's economy. I regret that we are in a position where we have not been able to reach agreement allowing the minority to offer amendments, which is confounding and perplexing as well as disappointing. After all, I know the majority rules. But certainly the traditions of the Senate accommodate minority rights as well. That should mean, on the foremost issue facing the country today, the economy and jobs, that the minority would be allowed to offer a few amendments. That is all we are asking. After all, this issue has been languishing for the last 6 months. It should have taken the highest priority back in January, as I indicated; It is that important to the American people, as reflected in the historic low approval ratings of Congress. We are not addressing the key issues facing America today, and that is how we will turn this economy around and create jobs for the American people.

Here we are today in a deadlock because we are not allowed, on the minority side, to offer a few amendments. As I look back on the calendar, we had 78 days we were not either in session or voting. We could have spent all that time considering amendments for the key issue confronting America. In fact, over the last 2 weeks, since this bill has been pending, not one amendment has been offered or allowed to be offered to the small business bill. We have wasted all this time when, in fact, we could have been considering amendments. Last night on the unemployment benefit extension bill, we were able to vote on six different amendments. We had six votes last night on issues. The process worked well. That is the way it should work in the Senate, where we are supposed to accommodate a variety of positions and build consensus on the key issues facing America.

I know today we are lacking patience, when it comes to governing and legislating and reviewing issues and working with people with whom we disagree. That is regrettable. The American people understand what is happening here in Washington these days, where it is an all-or-nothing proposition. I hope we can turn the corner on this issue above all else because it does matter to the American people. It matters to people what is happening on Main Street. That is as true in my

State of Maine as it is true across the country. It is no wonder more than 70 percent of the American people think the country is going in the wrong direction when it comes to the economy--understandably so. Because they go down on Main Street and see what is happening. They see businesses closing, the anxiety that permeates not only the main streets but communities and households all across America because of the lack of job security, financial security, personal security, all of which has created a picture of anxiety and desperation on the part of so many, wondering where the next job will come from, if they lose their jobs, or whether they will get a job having lost a job. That is what it is all about.

I can't understand why we couldn't come together in the Senate, consistent with the tradition of this body, which is to consider a variety of ideas across the political aisle, build consensus, and support. The more ideas, the better. It will make the legislation certainly much improved because we will have a variety of ideas that are important when it comes to improving our economic status in America. It is disconcerting when we know that the Federal Reserve has adjusted their growth rates for the economy, lowering them because of what they anticipate in the future in terms of economic growth, unemployment, the lack of investments being made by companies today either in hiring or capital equipment. The combination has created a much more pessimistic picture for the future in terms of our economy.

Then, of course, we have the uncertainty emanating from Washington, from Congress, in terms of a variety of policies, whether it is health care, whether we are talking about increased taxes or increased regulation, as we saw with the tax extender bill, having subchapter S and increasing Medicare payroll taxes and, in fact, applying them for the first time on retained earnings which is the greatest source of capital for a small business investment. Yet we want to tax that as well. We are seeing all that uncertainty.

People say: Businesses are not sitting on their cash. Businesses won't sit on their cash, if they think they are going to make money. That is the point. They would invest. They would make the investments, if they thought the economy was going in the right direction. But they have to be more conservative, if they don't know exactly what is going to come out of Washington in terms of policies and more regulation.

I have talked to numerous business people in my State, including bankers. They all say the same thing. We don't know what is going to come out of Washington in terms of the types of policies that are going to add to the cost of business. I was talking to one individual who is in charge of a big corporation in America, making an adjustment of one facet on the close to 1,000 regulations in the health care bill. He said one adjustment already has cost him $5 million. Multiply that, and it grows exponentially. The point is, it is a challenging picture for the private sector in terms of taking steps or taking the risky steps in investing in the future for their company. They want to make sure they are making the right decisions, the prudent decisions to make money and not to lose it. That is where we come in, in terms of creating certainty with respect to our policies, not adding more in terms of taxes and spending that adds another overlay to the cost of doing business. Because they are going to be far more reluctant to take those steps that we think are necessary to turn this economy around.

That gets to the point of the pending legislation and, in particular, an amendment I know has been offered by the chairman of the committee, Senator Landrieu, with respect to the lending facility. It is a provision I have had a great deal of concern with respect to, this lending capacity that would be created that would extend from the Treasury to banks across the country. I know the majority leader has taken this provision out of the underlying bill, and I certainly appreciate that because I do think it is important that this facility is not included in the overall legislation. First, it has not had a single hearing with respect to the issue. In my view, it certainly does resurrect the controversial TARP that we just terminated in the bill that passed last week in the Senate and was signed by the President which is, of course, the financial regulatory reform bill. It is definitely a facsimile of that approach and that program that has created a great deal of concern.

The lending fund was debated in the House, certainly on the House floor in the House Financial Services Committee, where significant concerns were raised about the program's similarities to TARP. In stark contrast to the Small Business Committee provisions in the substitute amendment we are now considering, many of these measures certainly are going to add a great deal of concern in terms of whether we should be extending more than $30 billion to banks across the country. I hope we will rely on the key provisions in the underlying legislation; for example, raising the 7(a) guarantee rate from 80 to 90 percent and increasing and also reducing certain lenders' and borrowers' fees in the 7(a) and 504 loan program.

I am pleased those measures that were included in the stimulus plan that we passed last year resulted, as this chart indicates, in a 90- percent national increase in SBA lending since Recovery Act's passage and a 236-percent increase in Maine. It is a strong indication of the value of increasing the guarantee rate, which we have now done in the underlying legislation because those provisions expired in May. That is certainly one way of extending the lending capacity of the Federal Government through existing models that have been proven to be effective and workable, and that is a 7(a) guarantee program. As a result, in June the SBA approved $647 billion in 7(a) guarantee loans, a 56-percent decrease from May's $1.9 billion, because we allowed those provisions to terminate that were included in the stimulus bill. Had we allowed them to extend, we would have seen continuity of lending to small businesses in this country.

That is why I think those measures are extremely effective. They have already demonstrated their efficiency and their workability across the country. That is what will work for small businesses, if we were to increase those guarantee rates and reduce the lenders' and borrowers' fees. That is why I am pleased the majority leader included in his substitute a modified version of my amendment that provides $505 million in funding to reinstate the fee waivers and increase guarantees through the remainder of this year. The SBA has estimated that the reinstatement of these provisions could leverage $13.2 billion in SBA lending. This is precisely the type of effect we could have for the taxpayers that maximizes the efficiency and the return on the dollar rather than reincarnating the speculative nature of TARP. These appropriations, coupled with the SBA lending provisions in the substitute amendment, will raise the maximum 7(a) and 504 loan limits from $2 million to $5 million and the maximum microloan limit from $35,000 to $50,000, which play an invaluable role in providing affordable credit to small businesses.

Obviously, when it comes to expanding access to capital, Congress must work in tandem with the administration and the Treasury Department. Let me begin by noting that I appreciate the hard work of individuals in the Department of the Treasury in trying to develop methods to spur small business lending. I understand how complicated it can be to devise workable, strong initiatives. The department has certainly attempted to do so. Unfortunately, I continue to have significant reservations with the lending fund for several reasons.

First, regardless of what the proponents will say about this lending fund, it is essentially an extension of TARP, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which, as I said earlier, has been terminated in the financial regulatory reform legislation the President signed into law just yesterday.

But let's look at what some of the experts have to say on this particular issue. In a May 17, 2010, letter that Mr. Barofsky--who is the special inspector general of TARP--wrote to Members of the House of Representatives, he states:

. . . in terms of its basic designs, its participants, its

application process, and, perhaps its funding source from an

oversight perspective, the [small business Lending Fund]

would essentially be an extension of TARP's CPP program. . .

.

Moreover, in its May Oversight Report, the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel for TARP states that the Treasury lending fund ``substantially resembles'' the TARP program. They say:

. . . it is a bank-focused capital infusion program that is

being contemplated despite little, if any, evidence that such

programs increase lending.

``An extension of TARP'' and ``substantially resembles'' TARP--that is how the experts of all things TARP--TARP's IG, the inspector general, and the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel--characterize this program. So obviously we are talking about the experts who are the watchdogs of the TARP, and they say that regardless of how you want to describe this program, it is what it is. It is an exact duplicate of TARP. That is what it is.

In addition to characterizing the Treasury lending fund as TARP, we had three Democrats and two Republicans on the Congressional Oversight Panel who also laid out a series of substantive concerns with the program. I would like to outline these for my colleagues as well.

First, the panel explained that the Treasury lending fund will be ``less relevant if declining business sales play a larger role in lending contraction than banks' rejections of loan applications.'' What does that mean? Well, it means that although lending contraction remains a significant concern, the root cause of that contraction may primarily be a lack of demand because borrowers are not as interested in taking on debt until their sales increase as opposed to banks' mere unwillingness to make loans they otherwise should be making. As the NFIB has long maintained, ``What small businesses need most are increased sales, giving them a reason to hire and make capital expenditures and borrow to support those activities.''

Secondly, according to the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel, the program will likely be branded with a TARP stigma, which will diminish banks' willingness to participate.

Third, additionally, the Congressional Oversight Panel has also concluded that the Small Business Lending Fund may reward banks that would have increased their lending even in the absence of government support, as the fund's incentive structure is calculated in reference to 2009 lending levels, which were low by historical standards.

I know the proponents of the lending fund may try to disagree with Mr. Barofsky and the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel's comments, but in doing so they will be arguing against the experts established to oversee TARP in the first place.

Moreover, it is not as if we are talking about partisan entities here. Again, the Congressional Oversight Panel is comprised of three Democrats and two Republicans, who have collectively agreed to include these statements in their report.

There are other unintended consequences that may result from Treasury's Small Business Lending Fund, which certainly raises a red flag for me. It is possible that instead of promoting quality loans, the proposal could encourage unnecessarily risky behavior by banks. The Treasury Department proposes to lend funds to banks at a 5-percent interest rate, which then can be reduced to as low as 1 percent if the institutions in turn increase their small business lending. However, if the banks fail to increase their small business lending, the interest rate they would pay could rise to a more punitive rate of 7 percent. Well, this could lead to an untenable situation where banks would make risky loans to avoid paying higher interest rates--a behavior known as ``moral hazard.''

Some have argued that the banks will not engage in risky behavior because they will remain liable for the underlying debt. We know that certainly was not the case with the mortgage crisis that got us into this economic mess in the first place. So in the final analysis, the possibility that this program could lead to poor lending decisions is something that, in the long run, will not help borrowers, lenders, or our overall financial system.

Incidentally, proponents of the lending fund highlight that several major banking associations support this initiative. Well, that would not be surprising. Who would not support receiving millions upon millions of dollars from the Federal Government at a 5-percent interest rate that could be reduced all the way to 1 percent? While I am in no way questioning the bankers' motives, I do point out that they are not viewing this from a perspective of objective third parties.

Moreover, it does not alleviate my concerns, and that is, obviously, the public's interests when it comes to issuing more than $30 billion of taxpayer funds.

Another key concern of mine is about the cost of the administration's lending fund. I am very apprehensive about whether Congress has taken into full consideration the program's true cost to the taxpayers. The previous scores for the Small Business Lending Fund are convoluted, to say the least. I say this because there are three different methodologies that the Congressional Budget Office has discussed when scoring various versions of the lending fund--specifically, the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 estimates, cash-based estimates, and fair value basis estimates. So those are the three different methodologies.

In the House version that was reported by the House Committee on Financial Services, the lending fund was scored by the Congressional Budget Office as costing taxpayers $1.4 billion. That level was determined by using the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 scoring. That Federal Credit Reform Act methodology is used when there is a disbursement of funds by the government to a non-Federal borrower under a contract that requires the repayment of such funds. In other words, the Federal Credit Reform Act methodology is used when scoring loans.

After this score was released, the House modified the lending fund to eliminate a requirement that the funds be repaid. Of course, there is every intent that the funds will be repaid, and in an effort to make this certain, the dividend rate that banks pay rises to a punitive 9 percent after 4\1/2\ years. But there is no absolute requirement to repay the loan.

Well, this change had two effects: First, it allowed the banks to treat the money it receives as an investment as opposed to a loan and therefore to count the funds as tier 1 capital, the core measure of the bank's financial strength. Second, it allowed Congress to claim that these are not loans, although for all intents and purposes they are, so that the bill can be scored under a more favorable cash-based estimate.

Once these adjustments were made, CBO issued another score that examined the lending fund as revised. The lending fund provision we are discussing today remains virtually identical, for scoring purposes, to how it was in that revised version that passed the House. That score is based on a cash-based estimate rather than the Federal Credit Reform Act because the funds were no longer considered as loans. Under a cash- based estimate, CBO listed the official score for the lending fund as raising $1.1 billion over 10 years. So this is the official score that has been touted by proponents of the lending fund. However, what they fail to mention is that very same CBO score stated that ``Alternately, the potential costs of the [Small Business Lending Fund] under [the House legislation] can be measured using procedures similar to those specified by [the Federal Credit Reform Act] but adjusted for market risk--as is specified by law for estimating the cost of the Troubled Asset Relief Program.'' This was referring to a fair value basis estimation. CBO goes on to note that when measured in this manner, the score would be a $6.2 billion loss.

Incidentally, to ensure accurate accounting, the legislation that created TARP required that it be scored using a fair value estimate. So in that case, it would cost--if you were to use the same estimate--it would be a $6.2 billion loss as opposed to a $1.1 billion gain in revenues, as the pending amendment suggests.

So putting this all together, we have the Federal Credit Reform Act score which highlights that if these were treated as loans--which for all intents and purposes they are--this program would cost taxpayers around $1.4 billion. But because of a change to not technically or officially require that the funds be repaid, it is now scored under different methodology, on a cash

basis, as a $1.1 billion revenue raiser, which is what the underlying pending amendment does. Moreover, CBO expressed that if it were scored on a fair value basis, the program would score as costing taxpayers $6.2 billion.

What does CBO state about which of the three scoring methods is more comprehensive? In the score, it states:

Estimates prepared on a ``fair-value'' basis include the

cost of the risk that the government has assumed; as a

result, they provide a more comprehensive measure of the cost

of the financial commitments than estimates done on a

[Federal Credit Reform Act] basis or on a cash basis.

So I ask the question, when I hear colleagues claim this is a $1.1 billion revenue raiser, is that accurate? Shouldn't we be concerned that this may not truly be the investment they are claiming? And critically, has all of this been taken into consideration when weighing the effects of this program on the Federal budget and when evaluating the efficacy of this program and utilizing it as an offset in the underlying legislation?

So I am concerned with various aspects of this pending amendment that creates this lending facility for more than $3 billion. In my conversations with Treasury officials, I stressed how critical it was to reach out to colleagues on both sides of the political aisle prior to having introduced this piece of legislation and before advancing and championing it here on the floor of this Senate to obtain input on how to devise lending funds in a way that would address the concerns I have raised and to structure it in a way that could achieve broad bipartisan support. Unfortunately, that did not happen, and this, of course, produces the amendment that is pending here today.

Also in my conversations with Treasury officials, I was under the impression this was going to be addressed through the Senate Banking Committee. That was the other issue I raised. I think, after all, given the fact that this is a banking initiative--it is the lending of more than $30 billion to commercial banks across this country--clearly the Senate Banking Committee should have been involved in examining this issue, that it should have been thoroughly reviewed and vetted and whatever objections existed on both sides of the aisle could have been examined and hopefully resolved. I would have been happy to have had an opportunity to discuss this issue in a way that could have alleviated and addressed these concerns.

Let's not forget this is a brand new program, the nature and magnitude of which is more than $30 billion, which justifies a thorough evaluation and certainly those that have been raised by the Congressional Budget Office in the variety of methodologies that can produce either a $6.2 billion loss or a $1.1 billion revenue increase.

The point is we are not using a true, accurate estimate of what this lending facility will ultimately cost the American taxpayers. If you would use a similar methodology as they did in TARP--which this is a TARP facsimile in terms of duplication and a reflection of TARP--then clearly you have to use the same method of addressing how this legislation either is costing the taxpayers money or is raising revenues for the taxpayer.

It is clear, if you use the fair cash basis estimate, the fact is, it would lose the taxpayers money because you have to take into account all the risks that will be involved during the life of the loan, and that is totally excluded on the estimate and the analysis of the method that was used in the pending amendment.

I outline all of these concerns because I do think it is important for my colleagues to consider very carefully the implications and the ramifications of this lending facility. It is a new program. It is similar to TARP. And it is not just my saying so; as I said, it is the inspector general who oversees TARP, the Congressional Oversight Panel that oversees TARP, which have all expressed that it has similar and equivalent features to the Troubled Asset Relief Program that we have just terminated in the financial regulatory reform program. It is a concern, and again, it is what the TARP experts call an extension of TARP. They call this lending fund an extension of TARP because it has all of the components of TARP.

So I think we should be very circumspect and hesitant about utilizing a similar program at a time in which we have to minimize the expansive nature of government programs in the spending that occurs here in the Senate, in the overall Congress, and on the part of government. I think it is important.

I have heard that when it comes to the TARP program, that money was distributed to small and medium-sized institutions. But according to the Congressional Oversight Panel, by December 31, 2009--which was the deadline for Treasury's capital purchases--20 percent of all TARP funds did go to small and medium-sized institutions and 98 percent of all recipient institutions were small and medium-sized institutions.

It is not whether a bank is good and that is why we should lend this money. Obviously, there are excellent community banks that do a great job; they did not contribute to the problem all across America. It is really a question as to whether this is good policy. That is the bottom line. Is this good policy? It raises a number of questions. It raises the specter that we are really recreating TARP in another manner; it is just directed to different institutions. I think we have to be very careful and cautious and prudent at this time.

Is there another way to extend the lending capacity of the Federal Government? Yes, there is. It is through the small business lending programs which I talked about earlier, and the majority leader has included some of the provisions that I and the chair recommended, which is to increase the guarantee rates that have demonstrated their effectiveness, that have demonstrated their workability. They work. They have increased lending across this country by more than 90 percent and, in my State, 236 percent. It has demonstrated its capacity for working. So why not use those models we have adopted in the past and that have proven their effectiveness?

I think that is what it is all about. How much can we do? Well, we know we are limited in terms of what we have as far as deficits and the national debt is concerned. So I think we have to be very prudent about how we extend taxpayer dollars.

I have a great deal of concern in terms of, No. 1, not only spending the $30 billion but the cost to the taxpayers if we use an accurate, realistic measurement similar to what CBO had indicated and similar to what was used in TARP; and, No. 2, how that legislation works because it creates a perverse incentive. It increases the interest rates to those banks that don't increase their small business lending but decreases it for those that do. So we do encourage the prospects of moral hazard and the likelihood that poor, risky loans might be made because of the fact that their interest rates will be reduced as a result. So I think we have to be circumspect about that.

I hope we do not accept this lending facility because I do believe it does raise serious and significant concerns and that it is duplicative of TARP. I think we need to be moving in a different direction in this country. Also, there are a number of issues that have been raised that cannot be addressed. I hope we could, rather, build upon the underlying amendment, the substitute amendment to be offered by the majority leader; allow for some amendments from both sides of the political aisle so we can strengthen the legislation that is before us with respect to providing incentives, tax breaks, and tax relief to small businesses that rightfully deserve those initiatives so we can incent them to create jobs and to feel certain about their futures as well as this country.

So with that, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, first of all, I hope that we could offer other amendments as well in addition to this. I think that is critically important, first and foremost. Just as you have had an opportunity to offer an amendment, our hope is that on our side of the aisle, we would have the ability and the prerogative to offer amendments as well, and then we would look at it at the end of the day. Obviously, I know the Senator from Louisiana feels very strongly about this amendment. Obviously, I have some deep concerns. I certainly hope to support this legislation without this amendment, but if it is the will of the Senate, then obviously I will continue to support it and hopefully we can move forward.

But I just think it is critically important with respect to this particular initiative that a number of these issues have to be addressed. In the final analysis, when we are talking about $30 billion, we can't do that lightly. Certainly, there are a number of issues that have been raised, ones that I have raised today, that clearly would have to be resolved in my estimation.

So I think from that standpoint I would have considerable concerns if it were left in that manner because I think it raises the costs to the taxpayers indisputably.

Secondly, as to whether it is going to create risky behavior on the part of banks that are assuming this legislation, and if it does add costs to the taxpayers, we have to think about that very carefully because, as my colleague knows, it does raise $1.1 billion, at least according to your projections. But if we use a true realistic analysis, as we did with TARP, it would cost the taxpayers $6.2 billion.

Well, let me, if I might through the Chair, inquire from the Senator from Louisiana, is there any sort of a time agreement for this discussion?

Well, I do not think--if there is no time agreement, then our side, I presume, would have an opportunity to speak. I do not think there would be any limitation on that.

Mr. President, I object to the yielding of time to another Senator. This Senator has been waiting for 45 minutes to speak.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Schumer.) The Senator from Louisiana can only yield for a question. So if the Senator from New Hampshire has a question, she may ask the Chair.

I would say, through the Chair, to the Senator from Louisiana, I do not have an objection to some sort of a time agreement. But the Senator from Louisiana has been speaking now since I have been here, for close to an hour. It would seem to me that if we are going to do this in an equitable way, some speakers on our side would have a comparable amount of time to make our points with regard to the amendment of the Senator from Louisiana.

If I can say through the Chair, to the Senator from Louisiana, I was just conferring to see what speakers we have on our side. I think Senator Shelby is coming down. I do not know long he intends to speak, but I would like to speak for up to 15 minutes or thereabouts. My assumption is that he would want to speak for a good amount of time.

So we might want to expand the amount of time the Senator has suggested in terms of the agreement.

Let me just say, if I could, to the Senator from Louisiana, I do not have any objection, I think, if we got back on a 15-minute--the ping-ponging back and forth one side to the other. I do think, however, the Senator from Louisiana has spent a good amount of time talking for nearly, since I got over here, an hour. If we might have an opportunity to catch up a little bit.

So perhaps we could have a half hour for our side, and then if there are speakers who want to come down after that, they could go 15 and 15.

I do appreciate the effort that is being made by the Senator from Louisiana to assist small businesses around this country. Frankly, there are many provisions in this bill I think people on both sides agree with.

I have, as a member of the Small Business Committee, a number of these provisions that I have supported in the past. I think many of my colleagues probably have as well. So to suggest for a minute that the Republicans are somehow standing in the way of passing this small business bill is just wrong. There is clearly a lot of Republican support for many of the provisions that are included in this bill.

In fact, I will mention the increased loan size and guarantees for SBA (7)(A) and 504 loans; temporary fee reductions for (7)(A) and 504 loans, updates to SBA's outdated size standards, and much needed tax relief through measures such as bonus depreciation, section 179 expensing, and allowing business credits against the alternative minimum tax, those are all things that there will probably be large bipartisan support for in the Senate. The issue we are having a debate about now is whether the Senator from Louisiana should be able to amend the underlying bill with a provision that would create a small business lending fund.

The point has been made by the Senator from Louisiana that somehow it is just Republicans who are opposed. The fact is, there were objections to that provision on both sides. That is the reason it is not in the base bill. It was originally in the base bill. It was dropped from the base bill at the request of the majority leader and the chairman of the Finance Committee, it is my understanding. This particular provision is not only objected to by Republicans; there is Democratic opposition as well, which is why it was once in the base bill and is now no longer in the base bill and is being offered as an amendment to the bill by the Senator from Louisiana.

I rise in opposition to the amendment. I, in all likelihood, depending on how it plays out, may very well end up supporting the bill. There are many provisions in here with which I agree. This particular provision, however, is going to make a lot of Members uncomfortable. We can say this isn't TARP, but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, and acts like a duck, it is a duck. This is TARP. Anybody who thinks for a minute they are voting for something that isn't TARP when they vote for this is, again, flat wrong. This is structured precisely the way TARP was structured. It is designed to avoid that label to encourage participation by banks, which I understand. I don't think there are many banks that would want to participate if they knew they were getting into TARP. But this is essentially TARP. It has been relabeled and renamed, but we can't get away from the basic fact that it continues to be an extension of TARP simply to small businesses or to smaller lending institutions, the assumption for which the TARP was made available.

As to the capital purchase program under TARP, reading from the quarterly report of the special inspector general for TARP, it says that of the 707 lending institutions that participated in the original TARP, 625 had assets of less than $100 million. I realize $100 million is still a lot of money. There are a lot of banks in my State that have nowhere close to that amount of assets. But if we take the total number of lending institutions that participated in TARP, which is 707, 625 of those or more than 80 percent were banks with less than $100 million in assets. There was participation by smaller banks. It wasn't only the big multibanks that were participating in the program. It was a lot of these $100 million and smaller banks that were participating originally in TARP.

The other point that has been made is that somehow this is different in the sense that this is going to actually raise revenue for the Federal Government. The TARP, projections are, will cost Federal taxpayers $127 billion when it is all said and done. We hope that is not the case. We hope that number is smaller, but that is what the estimates are with regard to how much TARP will cost Federal taxpayers. This particular $30 billion reincarnation of TARP, created specifically for smaller lending institutions, it has been estimated by the CBO, will actually generate a budget savings of $1 billion. How do they come at that? CBO, at the request in the House of Representatives, where this originally passed, used a different accounting method in determining the cost or the budgetary impact of this version of TARP versus the original version.

The CBO also noted that if the accounting conventions that were used to consider the budgetary impact of the original TARP were applied to this $30 billion TARP carve-out, it would cost Federal taxpayers or would score $6 billion. Again, it is because this scored

differently. If this fund were scored as they scored TARP, which was on a fair market basis adjusted for a market-risk basis, then it would cost $6 billion. This is being scored on a cash basis as raising over $1 billion. That is what the CBO is saying. If they used the same accounting conventions applied to the original TARP, this program would have a budgetary impact of $6 billion, rather than the $1 billion savings being reported by the proponents of the legislation.

I make that observation to point out that when people who are voting for this think there may not be any consequence with regard to the fiscal impact this could have, they are not taking into consideration the full picture. There was a change made in the way CBO scored the original TARP and the way they have scored this particular program. If we use the same convention or the same accounting conventions applied to the original TARP to this TARP, we would be talking about a $6 billion cost to taxpayers as opposed to $1 billion in savings.

It strikes me that there is great effort being made to convince people this is not a TARP program. I wish to point to the White House's talking points that admit that the ``program would be separate and distinct from TARP to encourage participation'' and that ``the Administration's proposal would encourage broader participation by banks, as they would not face TARP restrictions.''

These restrictions include executive compensation rules, warrant requirements, and a variety of other things. But my point is, this is the same flawed structure. This is the same basic mechanism used to create the TARP. Most people here, Members on both sides, have great apprehension about how TARP was used. Again, to Members who will be voting for this particular reincarnation of TARP, if they didn't like voting for TARP the first time, they probably should not be voting for this. We are essentially doing the same thing, but we are purposely removing some of the very safeguards created under the TARP.

There are better ways of helping small businesses. We have 9.5 percent unemployment. We are trying to encourage small businesses to create jobs. Yet here we are talking about going back to the old playbook and trying to somehow make this look better and sound better and put different lipstick on it and say this is a new program, when it is essentially something we are all familiar with. If we want to help small businesses, we should get our foot off their throats. Let's get Washington's foot off the throats of small businesses.

Everything being done here in terms of public policy in the last year or year and a half is going to make it more difficult for small businesses to create jobs. We have passed a $1 trillion expansion of health care which imposes new mandates and taxes on small businesses. We have passed a $1 trillion stimulus bill which has done very little to help small businesses. If we had been having this debate when the stimulus debate occurred, there might have been more support. But at the time, a very small fraction of the total amount, about one-third of 1 percent of the amount that was spent under the stimulus bill to try and grow the economy and create jobs, was actually directed at small businesses. It was a nonfactor in the debate during the stimulus. We spent $1 trillion, most of which has been used to create jobs in Washington, DC, in the Federal bureaucracy. We haven't done anything to provide the incentive for small businesses to create jobs.

It is going to get worse because, as we all know, next year, the 2001 and 2003 income tax cuts expire, at which time, if no steps are taken, the rates are going to go up on small businesses. The other side will argue that we will insulate and protect people under $250,000 from these tax increases, $250,000 for a married couple and $200,000 if one is single. The point Members of this body need to remember is, 50 percent of small business income is taxed at those top two marginal income tax rates. When we raise those top marginal income tax rates-- the 35 percent rate up to 39.6 percent and the 33 percent rate up to 36 percent--we are imposing tax increases on small businesses. That is what small businesses have to look forward to next year. It is no wonder small businesses are not creating jobs. We continue to pile these new mandates, new taxes, new compliance and regulatory burdens on them. We expect them to go out and create jobs.

Look at the proposal for energy, the cap-and-trade proposal. It would put a punishing new energy tax on small businesses. At every turn what we see is Washington, DC, and the Congress taking steps detrimental to job creation and making it more difficult for the very small businesses that are the economic engine of our society to create jobs.

There are some things in this legislation that are good. There are some tax incentives for small businesses. We are talking about a provision now, an amendment that would be added to this bill, a $30 billion mini TARP which we have all seen work in the past. I don't think anybody here would want to go down that path again, if they knew that is what they were voting for. That is why this incredible effort is being made to relabel what this is. That is why they are changing the language in describing this. But the fact is, we are talking about the same thing.

I wish to read some quotes from the TARP congressional oversight panel, which is headed by the administration's rumored choice to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, and that is Elizabeth Warren. She has expressed skepticism that it will be effective in increasing small business lending, the fund we are currently debating. She says:

The small business lending fund looks uncomfortably similar

to TARP. Like the capital purchase program under TARP, the

small business lending fund injects capital into banks

assuming that an improved capital position will increase

lending, despite the lack of evidence that the capital

purchase program did.

That is a direct quote from this report by the congressional oversight panel. She goes on to say that ``such a fund runs the risk of creating moral hazard by encouraging banks to make loans to borrowers who are not creditworthy.''

We have a lot of folks who have followed very closely what happened with TARP who are expressing reservations about this particular lending program and how it might impact the Federal budget. If we use the same scoring conventions applied to the original TARP, it comes in at a cost of $6 billion as opposed to a savings of $1 billion. When we completely throw away the accounting manual and use a different accounting convention, we get a different result. But the risk still exists. The CBO has made that clear in their analysis. When we look at what the congressional oversight panel says with regard to how this will resemble TARP, the risk they recognize inherent in that, as well as the limited effectiveness of the original program in encouraging banks to participate, this is a path down which we should not go.

There are things in this bill that are good. There are things that will attract bipartisan support in the Senate that Members on both sides are in favor of. But the reason this provision was stripped out wasn't because Republicans alone objected. There were Democratic objections as well. It was taken out of the base bill. It is now being offered as an amendment for that reason. It is not Republicans who are trying to stop us from doing things that will help small business. The best thing the Senate can do to help small business is to quit putting new mandates, new taxes, and new regulations on them. Then they will see the kind of certainty they need to create jobs and get the economy growing again.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, how much time is left of our allotment?

Thank you, Madam President.

I thank the Senator from Alabama for his eloquent remarks as a key member and the ranking Republican member of the Banking Committee, as someone who is very knowledgeable of the impacts these decisions we make here in Washington have on our financial institutions across this country. I think he is someone who has gone through, as many of us have, this experience with TARP, and his comments are particularly on point. So I thank him for being here and for speaking to this issue.

As my colleague from Maine also noted earlier today, I think there is pretty broad opposition to this particular amendment, notwithstanding the support many of us have for the underlying bill. As I said before, there are tax incentives in the underlying bill, along with some other changes that are being made in some of the Small Business Administration lending programs, that I think will get widespread support in the Senate. But I believe this particular provision, for many of the reasons I have mentioned and others have mentioned on the floor, is going to find a considerable amount of opposition, and I would expect that to be bipartisan opposition.

In the few minutes I have remaining, what I would like to do, if I could, is wrap up with a couple of basic observations.

I know the Senator from Louisiana and others have talked about the discussion they have had with lenders in their States and some of the various associations that represent their States. I also had the opportunity a couple days ago to visit with a number of my bankers in South Dakota, most of whom believe this legislation is unnecessary because they think it is not an issue of having funds to lend, that there are funds to lend out there, and the question really is trying to find the types of deals, the types of borrowers who could make payment in a timely way. Hopefully, there will be more borrowers who are qualified.

One of the reasons I think they do not qualify is because there is so much uncertainty about what the rules of the game are going to be going forward. If you are a small business in America today, you do not know what is going to happen on the estate tax, the death tax. I hear that all the time from farmers and ranchers and small businesses. You do not know what is going to happen with regard to taxes on income, on capital gains, on dividends. All those things are set to go up next year if steps are not taken by Congress to prevent that from happening. You have the new health care mandates which many of the small businesses are still trying to react to and figure out--when this gets implemented, what impact is this going to have on my small business and my cost structure? You have the prospect looming out there of a new energy tax under some sort of cap-and-trade or climate change proposal that continues to be discussed here in Washington, DC. So there is this cloud of uncertainty surrounding businesses in this country and I think also lenders who are looking at businesses in this country and wondering whether these businesses are going to be viable in the future if they are hit with all these new taxes, new regulations, and new mandates.

So I think the better course for us to take is to look at ways we can liberate small businesses from regulations and taxes and mandates and enable them to go out and do what they do best; that is, create jobs. But, frankly, I do not believe, notwithstanding the arguments that are being made by the other side, that going down the path toward another TARP--again, $30 billion is a significant amount of money. It is tax dollars we put at risk.

Again, the reason the CBO scored this at a $1 billion savings is because they did not take into consideration, with the methodology they used in scoring it this time, market risk. They did when they scored the original TARP. If they used the same accounting conventions in making their analysis of the budgetary impact of this particular provision as they did with the original TARP, it would not result in a $1 billion savings; rather, it would result in a $6 billion cost to the Federal taxpayers. I think that is important to point out in this debate going forward.

Let me, I guess just to close, at least temporarily, while other speakers perhaps come down to talk about this, say that the White House's talking points, as I mentioned earlier, make it abundantly clear that this really is a TARP. They are trying to disguise it and call it something else because they want bankers to participate and they know bankers will not participate if they think they are getting into a TARP.

These are the talking points from the White House which admit, again, that the ``program would be separate and distinct from TARP to encourage participation.'' It goes on to say that ``the Administration's proposal would encourage broader participation by banks, as they would not face TARP restrictions.'' Again, as I said, these restrictions the White House is referring to include restrictions on executive compensation and warrant requirements, to name a couple.

So this really is--if you look at the way this breaks down and you compare it side by side with how TARP was structured, it very much is the same thing.

We can call it something different. We can label it something different. We can disguise it. We can try to make people feel better about voting for it. But what you see is what you get, and what you get and what you see here is TARP by another name.

So I do not think it is necessary for us to be going down this path again. We have tried that once. When we did try it the last time, of the total number of banks--707--that participated in the capital purchase program under TARP, 625 had assets of less than $100 million. So this is something that has been tried, and it certainly does not seem, in my view, something we ought to be trying again. There are a lot of other ways to provide incentives for small businesses to create jobs. Some of them are in this bill, and for that I congratulate the Senator from Louisiana. I worked with her as a member of the Small Business Committee on some of those provisions. But this one really is a bridge too far. It is not something we need to be doing. It is not something the taxpayers of America need us to be doing. I would argue, as well--and this is based, again, on conversations I have had with lenders in my State of South Dakota--this is not something they think is necessary when it comes to making more credit available to small businesses in this country.

So I would, with that, reserve whatever time we have. I guess I yield back the remainder of my time--I assume it is about gone--and will wait for some other speakers to come down.

Would the Senator yield?

I appreciate the comments of the Senator from Tennessee. I couldn't agree with him more that this amendment should not be adopted, should not be added to the small business bill. We have had a number of people coming to the floor to speak on the amendment. The Senator from Louisiana made a couple of observations after I spoke in opposition to the amendment, one of which was that Republicans have evidently some newfound affection for Elizabeth Warren. I don't think that is the case. In fact, she is the rumored choice of the administration to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The observation I was making was that she, who most of us perceive to be somewhat more on the liberal side, had made strong statements about this particular small business lending finance program and compared it to TARP. She also pointed out that the capital purchase program under TARP had very mixed results with regard to whether it encouraged banks to participate and lend. It also carries with it, as TARP did, an inherent risk that taxpayers may be left on the hook.

It has been that this will be a revenue raiser, that this, the $30 billion TARP, is going to actually generate a $1 billion budget surplus. The Congressional Budget Office was directed to score this differently than they were the original TARP. If the same accounting conventions were used and applied to this particular program and the calculation including market risk, we would have a $6 billion cost attached to this $30 billion TARP rather than a $1 billion budget savings.

There was the suggestion that there isn't any risk to taxpayers. Anytime we are putting $30 billion out there, granted, it may be well intended, but we all saw what happened with TARP. The expectation with TARP is that it will lose about $127 billion for taxpayers. We hope it is less, but that is the estimate today. It is fair to point out again that people who come into the Chamber and believe they are voting for something other than TARP are misleading themselves. If we line this up with the way the TARP was structured, side by side, it is check, check, check, right down the line. This is the same essential thing. To call it something else is all fine and good, but that is what it is. This is a TARP. It is a reincarnation of TARP, intended for small businesses and smaller banks, which is all fine and good, but make no mistake. If we vote for this, we are voting for a TARP. That poses risk to taxpayers.

There was the suggestion that somehow I don't know what my bankers in South Dakota think. I think most of us who represent our States try to stay informed about the views of our constituents. I sat down with a number of my bankers 2 days ago. They were clear this is not something they are advocating for nor do they need. They had other issues they wanted to talk about. We have not had contacts in our office advocating for this. Most of us represent our States in a way that we have a pretty good idea of what the views of our various constituencies are. At least where South Dakota is concerned, this is not something South Dakota bankers are asking me to do for them. They do have concerns about the financial services reform bill passed last week and signed into law. That is something they have deep concerns about. But this is certainly not something they are advocating for.

Inasmuch as we all want to do the right thing for small businesses, the best thing we can do for them is get off their backs, quit putting taxes and mandates and regulations on them. They are looking at the prospect next year of a huge tax increase, when tax rates go up. They are looking at a potential new energy tax, if a cap-and-trade bill were to pass. They are trying to figure out what is going to happen with the estate tax. They already have a new health care mandate that will put no cost burdens on them and raise the cost of doing business. Those are the types of things that will impact small businesses' ability to create jobs. Those are the things we ought to be focused on. Creating a new TARP is not going to be the answer that many of my colleagues who support this amendment think it is.

I urge colleagues to vote against this. I suggest we look at the things we can do that do impact small businesses.

Most of what we are doing in Washington right now is detrimental to economic growth and job creation.

Certainly.

Mr. President, to the Senator's point about this perhaps acting as an encouragement for lenders to get money out the door quickly, perhaps with assuming more risk than perhaps they should, I wish to point out, again--and because I am quoting Elizabeth Warren, somehow there was an implication earlier that Republicans have a newfound affection for her, but she is someone whom the Democrats look to extensively when it comes to advice on these issues. As the head of the congressional oversight panel, in their assessment of TARP, particularly with regard to this specific program, the small business lending fund, they said it ``runs the risk of creating moral hazard by encouraging banks to make loans to borrowers who are not creditworthy.''

This is not something that many of us are making up. Clearly, there are those who are very concerned that this could become not unlike what we saw with the original TARP, which there are still a lot of concerns about. Many of us who voted for that the first time around thought it was going to end up as something different than it was. I don't think we need to go down that path again.

I hope we will defeat this today because there is moral hazard associated with it. We want to do the right thing by small businesses. I have named several things small businesses are concerned about--cap and trade, more government takeovers, more Federal spending and debt and higher taxes and more mandates through the health care bill passed earlier this year. It is important to keep in mind in this debate the taxpayers. Anytime we talk about a program such as this, there are inherent risks. Again, to use the accounting methodology that CBO used when they scored the original TARP, if they used that accounting convention which takes into consideration market risk, this program would be a $6 billion cost rather than a $1 billion savings, as proponents of the amendment advocate.

This is about taxpayers as well as small businesses and small banks. This is not the correct way to help them. I hope our colleagues in the Senate will reject the amendment.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, there has been a lot of discussion on the floor of the Senate in the last couple of days about small business legislation and various things dealing with jobs, and clearly we need a lot of jobs in this country. We have gone through a very steep economic decline that has victimized lots of Americans. Because of that, we have a lot of people who are waking up in the mornings without work and wondering what to do next. They feel helpless and hopeless and are trying to get their feet on the ground. But they need some help from this Congress; that is, we do not create jobs, but we do create conditions under which jobs can be created by the private sector.

So I want to talk a little about the issue of what might give the American people some confidence because confidence is everything. If they are confident about the future, it means our economy can expand. If people are not confident about the future, our economy will contract. It is that simple.

There is no question that this country now, having gone through the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression, has the largest Federal budget deficits we have ever had. In the last couple of years there have been enormous budget deficits. In fact, the budget was in deficit by $1 trillion by the end of June in this fiscal year.

But our colleagues--some of whom voted for all the war funding over these last years and voted for the big tax cuts to reduce the government's revenue, and all of those issues--are now rushing to the floor with everything but suspenders and proclaiming that now the deficit is a big problem.

Well, I will tell you why it is a big problem. It is a big problem because 10 years ago a lot of folks in here decided to cut the revenue steeply, and cut taxes mostly for wealthy Americans, and cut them in a very significant way. So the government had less revenue. They did that because they believed we

had budget surpluses that were going to exist for 10 years.

We had not had a budget surplus for 30 years in this country. We ran deficits for 30 years. Then, all of a sudden, at the end of the Clinton administration, we had a budget surplus of a couple hundred billion dollars. I am pleased about that because I voted for the economic plan that helped create that. We put that in place in the middle 1990s, and we got to a budget surplus.

When that happened, in the year 2000 we had a bunch of folks say, when a new President came into office in 2001: Do you know what? We have a budget surplus. We have a bunch of hotshot economists telling us we are going to have budget surpluses as far as the eye can see. We are going to have budget surpluses for the next 10 years.

Then Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, said he could not sleep because he was worried we were going to have surpluses too large and we were going to pay down the Federal debt too quickly. That is right. I know it sounds like a joke, but the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board worried we would pay down our debt too quickly.

So the President came to town in 2001 and said: Let's have very big tax cuts, and I and others said: Let's probably not do that because at this point we don't know what is going to happen for 10 years. We had economists who could not remember their telephone number for 3 hours telling us what was going to happen for 10 years.

So they said: We are going to have 10 years of surpluses. Let's have very big tax cuts. So the President constructed very big tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy, and here we are. What happened as a result of that? Well, almost immediately we were in a recession in 2001. Then we had a terrorist attack against this country in September of that year. Then we were at war in Afghanistan and at war in Iraq and in a war against terrorists.

So we sent hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of soldiers abroad, and we rotated them in and out for 8 years and never paid for a penny of it because the President said: We are going to spend emergency funding, which means we do not pay for it; we just put it on the debt. We did that for a decade.

Now, all of a sudden, all the people who voted for the same things-- that is, tax cuts for the wealthy and deciding to send soldiers to war without paying for it--now we hear all this bloviation about how the debt is important. Well, yes, it is important. It was important when they voted to cut taxes for the wealthy as well. It was important when we decided to fight two wars and not pay for a penny of it. The fact is, it is unsustainable now, and we have to find ways to fix it.

It is interesting, yesterday, I came to the Senate floor because one of my colleagues came to the floor and said the priority is to eliminate the estate tax. That is the priority. He did not say that. He said ``eliminate the death tax'' because a clever pollster said: If you say ``death tax,'' it invokes a lot of passion. So we are going to eliminate the death tax--not understanding, apparently, or not caring, perhaps, that there is no such thing as a death tax.

When you die, there is no tax on your death. In fact, had I been on the Senate floor when my colleague mentioned that--I know my colleague is married--so I would have asked: God forbid something should happen to you. But if it did, tell me what would happen to your estate because I know the answer.

The answer is, his spouse would inherit the estate, no matter how large, tax free, because we have a 100-percent spousal exemption. So that Senator's death would have, obviously, been nontaxable.

So where is the death tax? We do not have a death tax. We never had a death tax. We have a tax on inherited wealth. That is what we have. So my colleague said, the most important thing at the moment, while we are deep in debt in the country--and with a growing debt and a need to control the debt--the most important thing at the moment is to get rid of the death tax, which means you want to provide tax breaks for billionaires.

I did not vote for the proposal in 2001 that put us on a course of changing our tax system with very large tax cuts for the wealthy and reducing the estate tax obligation so that it came down to having zero estate taxes in 2010 and then spring back to a higher estate tax in 2011. I did not vote for that. I thought it was about half nutty. But it passed. Enough people thought, apparently, it was OK, so they voted for it.

So now, last year, we had an estate tax that had an exemption of $7 million for husband and wife--$3.5 million each--and a 45-percent rate.

This year, the estate tax went to zero; that is, nobody has to pay any estate tax. So we have had four billionaires die this year. The late George Steinbrenner died, the owner of the Yankees. So his estate will not be taxed--well over $1 billion.

I have said, this is the ``throw mama from the train year.'' You know the movie ``Throw Mama from the Train.'' This is the year--if somebody has to go, I guess, especially billionaires, they get to pay no taxes this year. Then the estate tax is supposed to spring back to a $1 million exemption, husband and wife, and a 55-percent rate.

So my colleague and others now say the highest priority for them is to eliminate the death tax. This year, we will have lost about $15 billion in revenue because there is no estate tax. That is just this year. Over 10 years, it is a very substantial amount.

Who is going to benefit if you eliminate the estate tax? Well, if under last year's law you had to have $7 million in total assets to pay an estate tax, how many people would pay it? Very few, less than 1 percent. In fact, I think it is three-tenths of 1 percent of the American people would ever pay an estate tax. Now we are told the highest priority is to eliminate the estate tax, which means that America's billionaires are going to be given a tax break, and those who want to do it say we want to do that because they should not be taxed twice. Well, they are not taxed twice.

That estate, in most cases, has never borne a tax. Most of it is growth appreciation from stocks or bonds or property and has never borne the tax that most people have to pay.

A lot of people get up in the morning and put on their clothes and go to work, and they work at a manufacturing job all day--although there are fewer these days because we are moving those jobs to China--but they get up and go to work and then they come home and they have withholding on their paychecks and it says they paid taxes. They have to pay taxes for kids to go to school and to build roads and to pay for the police and to pay for the Defense Department and so on--the Centers for Disease Control. They have to bear a burden as an American citizen to help pay for the things we have together.

But if we eliminate the estate tax, we say to, for example, Bill Gates--when Bill Gates expires--that $50-some billion or $60-some billion of yours, most of which has never had any kind of a tax burden at all, we believe it ought to be tax free. That is the highest priority?

I used the word ``nutty'' before. Let me state again that is just nutty. What are you thinking?

Here is something I quoted yesterday from Will Rogers. Will Rogers, 80 years ago, had it right, and it certainly applies to some in this Chamber for sure. Will Rogers said:

The unemployed here ain't eating regular, but we'll get

around to them as soon as everybody else gets fixed up OK.

Well--do you know what?--go back about 18 months and just figure out who got fixed up in this country, who got fixed up OK. Do you think the folks at the top of the economic ladder get fixed up? Yes, yes. In fact, the lowest unemployment rate in America is those at the top of the economic ladder.

There is a pretty low unemployment rate actually in the Senate, now that I think of it. We all get up in the morning and put on a white shirt and a suit and a tie, and we all eat three meals a day.

But the people at the bottom of the economic ladder--those 5 million Americans who have lost the manufacturing jobs, the people who are looking for jobs and cannot find them, when we are 20 million jobs short; the people who have been laid off, professional people who, in many cases, were laid off and have been searching for work for 2 years and cannot find it--they are the people who seem somehow forgotten.

So now we have a priority by some in this Chamber of saying we have to get rid of the death tax--a tax that does not exist. In a bill they filed that would only benefit largely billionaires in this country. It is unbelievable. It is just unbelievable.

I do not know, maybe the people who are out of work need to change their names. There are names that signify wealth, at least it sounds like they are from a family that inherited wealth. But it just seems to me to be something that is pretty much in sync with what Will Rogers said a long time ago in terms of what is happening here. The people at the top get fixed up pretty well, and the rest do not matter much. That is a pretty pathetic set of priorities, in my judgement.

Tribal Law and Order Act

Mr. President, I want to say a word about a piece of legislation the Senate has passed and the House has passed and ought to make all of us feel as if we have done something very admirable and something that is going to save lives. So let me do that in a very positive way.

The Tribal Law and Order Act, which we passed--I passed, along with a lot of help from the Indian Affairs Committee, and the Senate passed-- now the House has passed that legislation. That will now be signed by the President into law.

Why is that important? Well, let me give you an example. On the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation--that straddles North Dakota and South Dakota--the rate of violent crime is not double or triple the national rate of violent crime. That would be pretty tough to live in a neighborhood where you have double or triple the national rate of violent crime. It is eight times the rate of violent crime for the rest of the country.

Live in that circumstance. Be a young child going to school or be an elder trying to get along and live in a neighborhood, live on a reservation, live in a circumstance where the rate of violent crime is eight times the national average. The stories we have heard at the hearings we have held are unbelievable.

On the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation--it is almost the size of the State of Connecticut--they had nine full-time police officers to patrol over two million acres of land. It is not possible to do a good job with so few officers. In one area of that reservation, a violent sexual rape, a crime in progress, a robbery, and a call to the police might get someone there later that day, or it might be the next morning, or days later--nine police officers to patrol that land 24/7. That does not work.

We have passed a piece of legislation that I think is very good, the tribal law and order bill. It is bipartisan. I am proud of that. Senators Jon Kyl and John Barrasso worked with me to get this legislation through the Senate. Let me mention cosponsors Jon Tester, Max Baucus, Mark Begich, Michael Bennet, Jeff Bingaman, Barbara Boxer, Maria Cantwell, Mike Crapo, Al Franken, Tim Johnson, Joe Lieberman, Jeff Merkley, Lisa Murkowski, Patty Murray, Debbie Stabenow, John Thune, Mark Udall, Tom Udall, Ron Wyden--so many. But there are so many who worked so long to try to respond to these problems.

The legislation deals with cross-deputization of law enforcement officers on Indian reservations and those off the reservation. We deal with the tribal court system and a wide range of provisions that we put in this legislation that are going to make a very big difference.

I have said on the floor previously that violence against American Indian and Alaska Native women has reached epidemic levels. We have heard it in the hearings and the testimony. One in three American Indian and Alaska Native women will be the victim of rape during her lifetime--one in three. That is an epidemic of violence.

We held 14 hearings in the Committee on Indian Affairs, which I chair, relating to public safety on Indian lands over the past 3 years. I had staff go across the Nation consulting with tribal governments and local law enforcement. Based on those consultations, we put together a piece of legislation that I think will make a very big difference. It strengthens the tribal justice system. It provides tools to law enforcement officers on the Indian reservations.

It will require the U.S. Attorney's Office to do its job. Violent crimes on Indian reservations are to be prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney's Offices, and in most cases those offices are many, many miles away from a reservation. Crime on Indian reservations becomes just a part of the backwater of work in those offices. We have information that 50 percent of murder cases on Indian reservations are declined for prosecution. They call them declinations. Think of that. In 50 percent of the cases, there is a declination of prosecution for the charge of murder. Nearly three-fourths of the cases for sexual assault are declined to be prosecuted. That is not fair, it is not tolerable, and we shouldn't stand for it.

We had a hearing with Chairman Herman Dillon of the Puyallup Tribe in Washington, who testified about the gang activity crisis on their reservation. There are 28 active gangs on that reservation, with members as young as 8 years old. The gangs are involved in drug trafficking, weapons sales, and turf wars where innocent bystanders are injured. This piece of legislation is going to increase the number of law enforcement personnel on reservations and provide better law enforcement training for those personnel.

I won't go through the stories we have heard, but they are unbelievable. There are a whole lot of victims out there living in Third World conditions on Indian reservations where they have inadequate health care, housing, and education. We have worked on all of those issues.

I am proud to say we passed the Indian Health Care Improvement Act earlier this year. It is now signed into law. We did that this year. It is the first time in 17 years that the Congress has dealt with those issues.

Now we have passed the Tribal Law and Order Act. This is the most significant of policy changes and legislation affecting the first Americans that has been passed in decades. I want to say to my Republican and Democratic colleagues who worked with me to accomplish this that I believe lives will be saved because of this legislation. I believe this will make a profound difference across this country in addressing these critical issues.

We have had hearings about Mexican drug cartels now running drugs through Indian reservations. I just described the circumstances of gangs.

There is so much that needs to be done. Finally, at last--at long, long last--we start down the road of improvement by having passed this legislation. I talked to President Obama yesterday and mentioned the passage by the U.S. House of our bill. He campaigned on this issue. It was very strongly supported legislation, and I know he will take great pride in signing it.

Finally, with all of the competition and tension, sometimes, between the House and the Senate, let me say how much I appreciate the work the House of Representatives did on this legislation.

Let me make one final point about Indian policy as I complete my statement. There is one other issue that is out there that I think desperately needs to be resolved, and that is something called the Cobell lawsuit. It has been languishing for 15 years. Last December, there was an agreement reached between the U.S. Government and the Indians in the Cobell case. We were given 30 days in the Congress to approve the settlement, and it has not happened. We must, must, must find a way to make that happen soon.

I showed a picture of a woman living on an Indian reservation with oil wells that were hers that she could see from her house, and she lived in a very small house. Why is that the case? Because she didn't get the money from the oil wells she owned. The U.S. Government created trust accounts for Indians, and manipulated those trusts, stole from those trusts, lost the records from those trusts over 150 years, and that is what resulted in this lawsuit called the Cobell lawsuit. It has gone on for 15 years, and a good many Indians have died while that lawsuit has gone on who should have benefitted from that lawsuit.

There was a settlement agreement reached last December between the parties. We were given 30 days by the Federal court to approve the agreement, and now it is 6 months later and

nothing has happened. The first Americans don't deserve this treatment. I hope very soon that the Cobell settlement will be a part of a piece of legislation that is passed by the Senate.

Mr. President, I yield the floor.

Mr. President, will the Senator yield for a question?

I apologize for interrupting the Senator. I didn't catch what she said about votes. Has there been a decision made about votes?

Well, that is actually fairly specific, though. It was sometime later about some things. I appreciate the Senator for responding to me.

I understand.

Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from Louisiana, Senator Landrieu, the chair of the Small Business Committee, who has been a great leader on this topic. It has been my pleasure to work with her on this measure to try to help our struggling small businesses.

I think Florida, maybe more than any other State, relies and depends upon its small businesses. We are the fourth largest State in the country, but we are a State that grew so fast, so quickly, that even though we have 18.5 million people, we do not have a lot of big businesses.

The businesses in Florida--nearly 2 million of them--are small. Not one Fortune 100 company is headquartered in Florida. Now we are trying to get there--we have a couple that are on the cusp--and we will. But Florida had this meteoric rise in population over the past 20 or 30 years. It was built on construction and growth and tourism and all the reasons why people want to come to our beautiful State.

But the jobs that have been created over the years are from small firms. They are the restaurant, the local diner, the beach shop, the tailor, the laundromat, the auto mechanic. These are the businesses that are creating the jobs in Florida. Many of them are centered around the service economy.

We are doing a lot to diversify our economy. But the truth of it is, they are the mainstream of Florida's economy, and they are struggling. This is the worst recession in anyone's memory in Florida, even worse than the recession we had in the 1970s.

Our unemployment rate peaked over 12 percent. It is still at 11.5 percent. While this sounds strange, 11.5 percent may not be better than 12 percent in this circumstance because what happens on unemployment rolls is that after a certain amount of time, people drop off and are no longer even looking for work. The truth of it is, if you are walking down the street in Florida and you see another adult walking down the street who is not retired, there is a one in five chance that person is unemployed or underemployed.

Times are tough. There are some signs of life. Some things are getting better. But for Floridians, this is the most difficult economy we have ever experienced. We have the second highest mortgage foreclosure rate. I read recently that our folks are No. 1 in the country in being behind in their mortgage payments.

So our small businesses, the creators of jobs, the folks who, as Senator Landrieu said, create 65 percent of the jobs nationwide--I bet you that number is much higher in Florida--need help. This bill is going to help those small businesses. It is not going to cure the problem overnight. Let's be realistic. But it is going to help.

The base bill does a lot of good things for small businesses. There are a lot of tax cuts in this bill. It is going to exclude small business capital gains by 100 percent. The bill will temporarily increase further the amount of the exclusion from the sale of qualifying small business stock. It is going to help something on carryback interest. It means a lot to small businesses. It will extend the 1-year carryback for general business credits to 5 years for certain small businesses. This alternative minimum tax hurts our small businesses. This bill will allow certain small businesses to use all types of general business credits to pay less taxes. When they purchase equipment, it is going to allow them to accelerate that depreciation. When small businesses get to keep more of their money, they get to keep more of their employees, and they get to hire new ones. That is just in the base bill.

This amendment Senator Landrieu and I and others are working on is going to put money into our local community banks that will be lent to small businesses. There has been a lot of confusion about the bill, and some of my friends and colleagues on my side of the aisle do not like it. I hope they are going to come around. There is a concern that this is going to be similar to what happened in the TARP bill. But these two bills are very different, and this amendment is very different. Let me explain why.

TARP went to the big banks that were failing at the end of 2008, a lot of which were selling mortgage-backed securities and other exotic investments they should not have been selling, and they put their assets at risk and, therefore, put the American economy at risk.

This has nothing to do with that. These are small banks. This is the banker you know down the street, the banker who is at your rotary or at your Kiwanis, whom you see at church or synagogue. This is not some Goldman Sachs banker. This is your local community banker who loans to the laundromat, the tailor, the construction business--the folks who employ people in your hometown.

This program is optional. No bank has to take it. If they are a small bank, though, if they have assets under $10 billion, they will get an ability to get some more money they can lend out to small businesses that create jobs.

That is not a partisan issue. We all should support that. The money that comes back in is going to be repaid, and not only are we not going to increase the deficit or the debt, as my colleague from Louisiana just said, the

Federal Government will actually make money. That is not something we hear a lot about in Washington.

So it is not going to increase the deficit. It is not going to increase the debt. It is not going to increase taxes. It is going to lend money to local banks, to loan that money to small businesses, to help them in this difficult time.

When I drive down the streets of Florida--whether it is in Orlando, Tampa, Pensacola, Jacksonville, Fort Lauderdale, Naples, all across the State--we have a lot of strip shopping centers. It is the way Florida was built. It is nice. You get to park in front, go in, buy your goods or services, and go home. But you can see them from the roads. When I drive down these main thoroughfares and I look over, what I see are empty buildings--empty buildings--because our small businesses have gone under because they no longer can pay their rent, because they no longer have the customers they used to have, and because they no longer can get lending from their bank.

What is particularly of interest to Floridians about this bill--I am sure this is true in other States, such as California and Arizona and Nevada, other States that had this big real estate-based economy that boomed in the past years--what happens to your local businesses is that a lot of times the loans they are getting now are tied to real estate they own. They may own a small parcel in a small building where they operate their business. They have a mortgage against that property. They are paying their payments, but the asset, the real estate, has fallen in value tremendously. So now, when the regulators come in and look at the bank's books to make sure the banks are operating OK, they say: Wait a minute. The mortgage that Joe's business has is technically in default because the asset their loan is against has fallen in value by 50 percent. I have business owners coming to me all the time telling me their banks are putting them in technical default because of the depreciation of the asset which is being held against the loan, which is their real estate.

So this is an extreme and an enormous problem in Florida. This bill will put more money in the small banks to help lend to businesses to help them bridge the gap until this economy recovers.

I also wish to speak a little bit about another amendment to this bill I have been working on with Senator Klobuchar that talks about export promotion--another issue that is not partisan. We all want more exports. Exports in Florida are a big deal. They are a huge part of our economy, being the gateway to Latin America. We sell our goods overseas. But small businesses, and even medium-sized businesses, whether they are in Illinois or Louisiana or any other place in this country, often don't know the services the Federal Government--the Department of Commerce--can give them to open the doors of trade and allow them to sell their products overseas.

So what Senator Klobuchar and I are doing with this amendment, with export promotion--and she has done a tremendous job on this issue--is putting more resources into the Department of Commerce to go back to 2004 levels--because we have had to make a lot of cuts there--in order to provide more folks who can then go out and show businesses how they can sell their wares, to create more sales, so they can grow their business and hire more people.

That is good for everybody's economy. I am not a big believer in government spending, but when we are spending to help businesses pursue their economic and entrepreneurial opportunities, that is good for America. In fact, when the Department of Commerce spends $1 million on export promotion, their estimated return is $57 million--a 57-to-1 economic return. So that is just another very good part of this bill.

I hope we have an opportunity to vote on this bill. We may even have an opportunity to vote on this bill and this amendment today. Our leadership is working on some other amendments. I hope those opportunities will be provided.

This is a bill we all should agree upon. It is a bill that should have 70, 80, or more votes in this Chamber, and we should get it done because it would be good for the small businesses, the job creators of our country, in their time of need.

I wish to thank my colleague from Louisiana who has been a great leader on this issue. I wish to thank her for working with me in order to lend my efforts to this bill to help to improve it in ways that I thought would be important for this country and for my home State of Florida. I also wish to recognize my colleague, Senator Klobuchar, who is here. She has done such great work on the export portion of this bill.

With that, I will turn back my time to my colleague from Louisiana.

I again thank my colleague from Louisiana and all my other colleagues. I see the Senators from Washington and Minnesota, who have worked on this bill are here. I think this is a very important piece of legislation, and that is why I have worked in a bipartisan way with my friend from Louisiana, who has been a leader on this bill and has put this bill together.

I know this is not without controversy. Some of my colleagues were here earlier, and they do not support this bill. I have enormous respect for my friends from South Dakota and Tennessee, and I appreciate their perspective, but I respectfully disagree with it. I think it was Ronald Reagan who said that if we agree on something 90 percent of the time, that means we are friends, and we are friends. I have tremendous respect for their views. But this bill does not bring with it, I believe, the problems my friends pointed out. This legislation helps small businesses, and in my State of Florida, that really matters because while we are the fourth largest State in the country, we are a small business State, not a big business State. We do have our share of big businesses, and we will grow more in the future. But because of Florida's meteoric rise in population over the past 20 or 30 years, we don't have those Fortune 100 companies headquartered in our State as other States do. Instead, we are a collection of small businesses, for the most part--nearly 2 million small businesses in Florida.

But during this recession--the worst recession Florida has seen in anyone's recent memory--those small businesses have been hurting. When I drive down the interstates and the State roads of Florida and I go past the small strip shopping centers and small buildings that house those small businesses that employ so many Floridians, unfortunately I now see a lot of dark and vacant buildings because these businesses have not been able to make it through this recession. Our unemployment in Florida is nearly 12 percent, and it may be worse than that because many no longer seek employment. If you figure the underemployed along with the unemployed, one in five adult Floridians who are able to work either doesn't have a job or doesn't have enough of a job. We are No. 2 in mortgage foreclosures, and we are No. 1 in the country in being behind on our mortgage payments. So Florida is hurting. There are signs that things are getting better, but we are struggling. And more than perhaps any other State, our small businesses need help.

This bill does that in a commonsense way, and let me explain why. The bill provides $30 billion for local community banks. This isn't Goldman Sachs, this isn't AIG, this is the banker down the street--the one you see at church or synagogue, the one in your Kiwanis or Rotary, the one who shops in the same stores you do. This is not some Wall Street banker but your local banker. So the bill provides $30 billion for local banks to make loans to small businesses.

The first reason it is not like the other program that was passed to bail out Wall Street is it is optional. The Treasury Secretary and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve are not going to get a bunch of local banks in a boardroom one night and pressure them into taking this money, as was done with TARP. It is voluntary. If they do not want it, they do not have to take it.

Second of all, this isn't going to increase the deficit. In fact, unlike most programs here in Washington--and my friends on the other side know I come to the floor all the time worried about the way we spend money in this Congress, worried about our debt and deficit, worried about what it will mean for our kids and our future--this piece of legislation is actually going to return more than $1 billion to the Treasury over time--so not a deficit, a surplus.

Again, the program is voluntary, it doesn't create a debt or deficit, and it doesn't create big government. It puts the money in the hands of community bankers to lend to small businesses, the folks who create jobs. My friend from Louisiana had a chart up earlier reflecting that 65 percent of all jobs are created by small businesses. I believe that number is far greater in my home State of Florida.

So who supports this amendment on which we have been working? Well, in Florida, the Florida Bankers Association does. Alex Sanchez, the president and CEO, wrote me and said:

This bill will help create jobs for Floridians by

increasing the loans to Florida's economic engine: Small

businesses.

Who else supports it? Camden Fine, the president and CEO of the Independent Community Bankers of America. He said:

This legislation is a positive for our community banking

sector and to our small business customers who are vital to

job creation and the economic recovery.

Robert Hughes, National Association for the Self-Employed, says:

The National Association for the Self-Employed, on behalf

of our 200,000 member businesses, strongly supports creating

the Small Business Lending Fund, which we hope will alleviate

the funding and credit freeze faced by small businesses by

expanding loan resources.

Barney Bishop, president of Associated Industries of Florida, which represents businesses throughout Florida, says that this act moving through the Senate right now will help small businesses and ``lead to jobs, jobs, and more jobs.''

David Hart, executive vice president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, says:

Their ability to access capital is critical for economic

recovery and job growth. The Florida Chamber of Commerce

Small Business Council believes the Small Business Lending

Fund will enhance the ability of small business owners to

create jobs and transition Florida to a new and sustainable

economy.

Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, writes in support of this bill:

The United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which

represents more than 200 local Hispanic chambers and serves

as the national advocate for nearly three million Hispanic-

owned businesses in our country, supports passage of the

Small Business Lending Fund Act.

These are Main Street groups. These are business groups that support this bill. So with all due respect to my colleagues who spoke before, this is good for business, and it is done in a measured and focused way that empowers the private sector. This is not big government. This doesn't run a deficit and it doesn't increase taxes.

In fact, to my friends who are supporting the base piece of legislation but may not want to support the amendment, they should know that our amendment cuts $2 billion in taxes out of the base bill. So we are going to cut taxes. The base bill has a lot of other cuts in taxes for small businesses, and I talked about that when I spoke earlier today.

This is going to be good for Floridians and Americans by getting needed capital to these small businesses that are struggling. That is why I support it. And I hope my friends on this side of the aisle will look at this bill seriously. I hope they think enough of me to look at it and give it a thorough evaluation because I know it is sort of a strange position I am in here. There may not be a lot of support for this on this side of the aisle, but my job representing Florida is to do what is right by the people I represent and to do what is right for the people of this country, and I believe this bill will do just that. It is not a perfect bill. No piece of legislation is. It will not solve the entire problem. No piece of legislation can. But I believe it will help. It will help in Florida, and it will help across the States of this great country, and that is why I support it.

In conclusion, Mr. President, I hope we can vote on this bill. I know the leadership is going back and forth trying to figure out a way to have some more amendments on this bill, and I believe that is the only obstacle to voting on this bill. I believe amendments should be allowed on this bill--a reasonable number--so we can get to it and we can pass it. Let's pass this thing before the weekend. Let's not wait until next week. Let's consider it, let's get it done, and let's help these small businesses.

Mr. President, I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from Louisiana.