Floor Statements

Mr. President, I have come to the floor to speak, as many of my colleagues have today, on the DISCLOSE Act, which is being sponsored by Senator Schumer, primarily, and other Members of the Senate, to try to fix and make significant adjustments to an area of law that is very important to many Americans and actually is at the basis of the operation of our democracy.

Many of my colleagues have come to the floor to express their concern about the importance of fixing this, and the DISCLOSE Act is how many of us intend to try to get something fixed that needs to be fixed. No matter if you are a Democrat or Republican, conservative or liberal, or if you are a progressive or a centrist, I think you think it is right to be honest. I think that is a principle everybody can agree to, to be honest and to be forthright and to be truthful and to have been aboveboard.

The problem, as you know, with the outcome of the Court case has to do with the way we run our elections. If we do not fix this, we are going to be in a situation in this democracy where people can spend unlimited amounts of money in a secret way. That is the problem. It is not that corporations can do it or labor unions can do it or conservatives or liberals, it is that it can be done at all in secret.

I do not think Americans want this. I know the people I represent do not want this. They want to have an honest debate. They want to have an open debate. They want people to stand and say: Hi. My name is Joe. My name is Jane. This is my position. This is my position. Debate it. Then people can vote. The problem, if we do not fix this Court case, is that you will never know who is saying what, and that is not right.

That is akin to walking out into the school yard and getting hit from behind and you do not even know who hit you and no one will tell you. How can you fight someone you do not know? How can you participate in something like that? So this loophole has to be closed. I think, and most people in my State believe, that elections should be open, should be honest, should be transparent. Corporations can participate, labor unions can participate, big companies, small businesses. But you do need to disclose who you are in a report.

I have an article from the Washington Post. I wanted to have it blown up, but we had difficulty. I will try to explain it, and I will hold it up so maybe the cameras can see it. This says in the last cycle in 2008, 117 entities reported donations, and there were 372 that didn't. That ratio is about one-third reported, and the other two-thirds did not. The trend is going in the wrong direction. More people are participating but not saying who they are so nobody knows. The report for this year, 2010, is already a ratio of 1 to 6. So we are not even into the end of this election cycle. We are getting close to it. The ratio is 15 have been reporting, 85 haven't, which means about only 1 in 6. It is all becoming secret.

I don't think that is right for our people. I think our people should know who is saying what, what money is behind what ad so it helps them understand better the arguments and why they might be seeing such ads.

I have a real problem, and I will give an example. The Presiding Officer may have this problem in Minnesota. We have a big problem in Louisiana and Florida with Chinese drywall. This product came in from China, and it is rotten. When people put it in their house, they get sick. Their kids get sick. Their copper piping starts rotting. It is horrible. Our people had

their homes flooded, and we had to gut their homes. We didn't have enough drywall in the United States so we started needing it so much, it came from lots of other places. Some of it is really bad.

So a couple of us have a bill that says: Don't send us any more rotten Chinese drywall. We are going to try to pass that bill.

I think my constituents would like to know, if they see an ad on television saying how great drywall is, these ads that say this is a fabulous product, tell Senator Landrieu to support this product, I think my constituents would like to know if that is actually the Chinese drywall company that is behind that product telling them not to vote for me because I am trying to protect them from this company. That is one example, but I could give 100 examples. I am not saying the Chinese drywall company that sent us rotten drywall should not advertise, although I don't think foreign companies should be advertising in elections in America. But let's say it was an American company that sent us this bad drywall. If they want to argue against a bill, fine. But at least let people know that is what they are doing. If it is a labor union advocating for something, let people know.

That is why I support the Schumer bill. That is why I support the DISCLOSE Act. That is why I think most people in Louisiana support it. They might make up their minds, but they would like to know who is paying for the ad. That is all this bill does.

I know there have been some friends from the other side who have come down and tried to convince the Senate that we don't have to tell people, that we should have all of our elections in secret. I think democracy is best served when people are educated, intelligent, and informed about all aspects. Let them make their own judgments. We live or die by that; we are either in office or we are not.

I wished to express my support. I hope we vote on it tomorrow. I wish we could get 60 votes in the Senate. It is mind numbing to me and mind boggling that we couldn't have a handful of Republicans stand and say they too believe we should have honest and open elections. It is not about corporate money or union money. It is not about trying to block corporate money or increase union money or block union money and increase corporate money. It is just about disclosing the money from wherever it comes and having reasonable limits that are fair to everyone. I don't think that is too much to ask. That is basically all this bill does.

I support cloture and ending the debate on something we don't have to take that long to understand. It is pretty clear. One is either for transparency or not, for disclosure or not, and we fought fairly for everyone.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded, and I ask unanimous consent for up to 5 minutes.

Madam President, I know we are getting ready to vote on a very important piece of legislation--the Small Business Job Creation Act--that we have actually been working on now for a year and a half. It is hard to believe that a year and a half has gone by, but it has, despite the extraordinary work that has been done on this bill from the Democratic leadership, from a handful of Republican Senators who stepped up to make this a possibility, and from the administration and Treasury and literally hundreds of organizations that have brought this vote to the floor today. I wish it could have been 6 months ago. I wish it could have been 8 months ago. Every day, every week we have waited to pass this bill has been another tough week for small businesses throughout our country. But this week is a good week for them. They have a bill that they can be proud of, that I believe we can be proud of, and it is overdue that we pass this bill today.

I know Members understand the significance of the three major parts of the bill: $12 billion in directed tax cuts; an infusion of resources and strength to the core small business programs in the SBA that we know are effective in stimulating loans to Main Street, that create the jobs that will put this recession in the rearview mirror; and we know the third part of this bill is a very significant and new strategic lending partnership we are establishing with healthy community banks, the 7,000 community banks in every neighborhood--in rural areas, in suburban areas, in all of our States, and in almost every single one of those communities in those States.

I thank Chairman Baucus particularly for his help and Senator Reid particularly for his help. I thank Senator Boxer and Senator Cantwell and Senator Merkley. But I also thank Senator Levin, Senator Warner, Senator Stabenow, many members of my Small Business Committee, Senator Shaheen, Senator Murray, Senator Schumer, Senator Lincoln, Senator Hagan, Senator Cardin, Senator Burris, and many others--Senator Sherrod Brown has been down to the floor time and time again.

I also thank two colleagues particularly from the other side of the aisle, Senator Voinovich and Senator LeMieux, who listened to their Florida bankers, who listened to their Ohio bankers, who listened to their small businesses in Florida and Ohio and said that this is the kind of bill we need--tax cuts, strengthening of SBA programs, and a smart strategic lending program.

I thank Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Gene Sperling and Don Graves, and of course I thank the staff of the Small Business Committee and my staff in particular who did so much work.

In addition, I thank the National Small Business Association, Independent Community Bankers, the American Bankers Association, the National Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders, and the hundreds of organizations that helped push and pull this Senate to this vote today.

In the last minute I have, I wish to submit two things for the Record that I think need clearing up and amplification. One is a letter from the Chief Economist of the SBA that answers directly a criticism that was published in the Washington Post yesterday about the ``myth'' that small business is not the business that grows jobs in America. The economist was misquoted. This is a letter for the Record specifically outlining that. I think it is worth review today.

Second, and more important, a banker from California--and I thank Senator Boxer. I met with a banker from California and from Florida. I am from Louisiana, but they wanted to see me, I wanted to see them, and I met with them. Got a standing ovation. I am very proud, of course, because they said to me: Senator, this may be one of the most significant bills to help get

our banks where we need to be to start lending.

I ask unanimous consent that these letters be printed in the Record.

Seacoast is a small bank. It only has $130 million in assets. According to this banker's testimony to me yesterday, he is going to take this bill and all of its provisions, and he believes he can leverage $180 million in SBA loans to small businesses. Based on their record and based on the average SBA loan size of $650,000, this one bank in southern California believes it can make 275 business loans.

If this one small bank in South Carolina can take this bill and its provisions and leverage it to 275 good-quality loans in South Carolina, there is hope on the way. This is a real step to putting this recession behind us. I thank the Democratic leadership for making it a possibility. I hope next time a bill like this is brought to the floor of the Senate, it will not take so long; we will not have to jump over the barriers and barricades that were put in front of this bill. So I hope Members on the other side of the aisle will lower those barriers next time because our small businesses cannot wait.

Tier 1 Capital

Madam President, as one of the two lead sponsors of the Small Business Lending Fund, I am deeply convinced of the ability of this program to provide small businesses with the credit they need to grow and create jobs. As you know, the purpose of this fund is to provide community banks with Tier 1 capital to increase their lending to small businesses, along with incentives for doing so. With up to $30 billion in capital, community banks that participate in the Small Business Lending Fund will be able to support many multiples of that amount in new lending. To allow that to occur, it has always been our intent and our understanding that the bank regulators should treat these investments as Tier 1 capital, in a manner consistent with that accorded to other capital securities issued to Treasury by eligible institutions and in consideration of the strong public interest in promoting lending to small businesses.

I thank the Senator. With access to Tier 1 capital, I believe that the community banks that participate in this program will be able to provide small businesses with the credit they need to grow and hire.

Deduction for Health Insurance Coverage

Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. President, could you acknowledge the vote we are about ready to take?

Parliamentary inquiry: If we get 60 votes, we move forward with the bill; is that correct?

Mr. President, I thank the leader for his kind words, but the fact is we would not have gotten to this point this morning where 61 Senators raised their hands or their voices to vote yes for this important and substantial piece of legislation had it not been for the leadership of Harry Reid.

The majority leader knows not only what Nevada needs but what America needs. What America and Nevada both need right now is to get back to work. The entities that are going to put Americans back to work are not found on Wall Street; they are found on Main Street. They are not big businesses; they are small businesses. They are not the businesses that have been around for 50 or 100 or 200 years; they are the businesses that started up last year or that want to start up today.

Majority Leader Reid knows and understands that. We would not be here this morning without his leadership. He is right to acknowledge Chairman Baucus. I said he is a long-suffering chairman of the Finance Committee and has also the patience of Job to put up with all he puts up with. Trying to pay for every idea that comes from all 100 of these desks ends up on his desk. They say: You have a great idea, Senator; now we need to pay for it. That is what Max Baucus does every day. I hope people appreciate it, not only in Montana but around the country. He found a way not only to pay for this bill but for it to generate for the taxpayer earnings of $1.1 billion. That is good work. It does not happen here every day, and it would not have happened without Senator Baucus and the many cosponsors Senator Reid pointed out: Senator Boxer, Senator Merkley, Senator Cantwell, Senator Warner, Senator Levin, Senator Lincoln--particularly helpful and supportive.

I also want to say this vote today to end debate was the vote on this bill. Make no mistake about it, if 60 or 61 Senators had not said yes this morning, this bill would have gone into this trash can right here not to be seen again. The $12 billion in tax cuts would not be a reality. The substantial improvement of the core small business programs would not be a reality, and the $30 billion lending fund that is going to leverage $300 billion in lending would not be a reality. It would be in the trash can right now. But it is not. It is alive. It is a living bill we are going to pass later today because 61 Senators in this Chamber said yes to the country and no to party politics.

Particularly, I wish to point out Senator Voinovich. His statement was so poignant in the paper today or yesterday when he said, or it was reported: I have run across small businesspeople in Ohio who went to 40 banks to try to get a loan, he said, and were turned down every time.

This is happening all over America today. Senator Voinovich is a Senator who governs with his heart as well as his head, and he is not led around by the nose like some people here, by their party politics. He said: No, the debate has to come to an end. If you want to debate the George Bush tax cuts, do it on somebody else's back, not on the backs of small businesses in Ohio or Louisiana or Virginia. They have taken too much weight.

When Wall Street collapsed because of the their greed and their recklessness and because of our failure to regulate them, do you know who got hurt? Small businesses that did not have anything to do with derivatives or international investment. All these people do every day is wake up before the Sun comes up and they stay up when it is dark and they work hard, sometimes by themselves once they send their workers home, and keep that business going. They did nothing and they deserve help and they are getting it this morning.

One more word before I turn it over to my colleague from Virginia. This whole debate this morning was a joke on Johanns. I want to talk about that. If the Republicans were serious about repealing something that needs to be repealed, they would have put an offset on this floor that we could vote for. They knew very few Democrats would vote for a provision that would harm one of the underlying principles of health care reform. So that was all theater--all theater. I have had about enough of it, and I think many Americans have had enough of it as well.

Senator Johanns is right that the 1099 section needs to be repealed. He is absolutely correct. It was the wrong thing to do. Even our side acknowledges that.

I am going to file a bill right now to take care of it. We are going to repeal

1099. We are not only going to repeal the portion that was put in by health care--which was not done intentionally, but there are sometimes unintended consequences. Anybody around here who thinks they can write perfect pieces of legislation--they cannot. When you do something wrong, you should correct it. We are going to correct it.

But in addition, my bill that I am going to file right now is going to repeal the $600 requirement that has been in the law for 62 years, and we are going to raise that threshold to $5,000, clean up the way small businesses have to report, and do something good for small business in America.

It is going to be a Landrieu bill. Lots of other people have indicated an interest in the past. It is not theater, it is real. We are going to find a way to pay for it that both sides can agree to.

I want to tell the Chamber of Commerce that I know is listening right now: We have heard you. I have heard the NFIB. I have heard small businesses in my State, and I know we made a mistake on this 1099 and we are going to fix it. But it does not have to be fixed this morning. It doesn't even go into effect for a year and a half.

Hear me, it doesn't go into effect for a year and a half. We have time to fix 1099. But we don't have 1 minute to wait to send money to small businesses that are putting ``Closed'' signs on their businesses this morning. If the Republican Party thinks they can keep saying no to small business and keep saying no to Main Street and keep saying no to the middle class--they cannot. I hope when we vote on final passage there will be a few more yeses.

We have a year and a half to fix 1099. We don't have any more time to help small businesses.

I yield the floor for the Senator from Virginia.

Mr. President, the Senator from Virginia is absolutely correct. He has put his finger on two pending and very serious problems. One is the regulation direction being driven by some of the new legislation we have passed. Of course, he would know this, because as a member of the Banking Committee, he has been such a strong advocate for commonsense regulation and supporting community banks. So he is absolutely correct. And you do have my commitment, through the Small Business Committee, to keep this issue alive and in view so that we can find some appropriate solution. I think the Senator raises an absolutely very key point.

The second point the Senator from Virginia has put his finger on is the $2 trillion in capital sitting there. One thing that makes further interest is the zero capital gains rate in this bill, should they take some of that $2 trillion in capital and invest in some small businesses that have a capitalization level below $50 million. That is one thing that could help encourage them. They will pay no tax, none, on the money they earn through that investment, which should be an incentive.

But there are some additional things I think we can do. I want to work with the Senator from Virginia because his leadership is very much needed at this time, with his particular background as a successful business person, as a Governor. So the Senator is right, this bill is not a silver bullet. It is a good first step. But there are some other things we need to do as quickly as we can. I look forward to working with the Senator on those two and others in the weeks to come.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the time in recess for the caucus luncheons count postcloture.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous conent that the Select Committee on Intelligence be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on September 14, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs, be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate, on September 14, 2010, at 2:15 p.m., in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Rape in the United States: The Chronic Failure to Report and Investigate Rape Cases.''

Madam President, I thank both Senators from Ohio and from North Dakota who have been two of the most effective and passionate leaders for ending this recession, creating jobs for the middle class, jobs focused on Main Street as opposed to Wall Street, and because of their leadership, it is starting to happen.

The Senator from North Dakota is so right. I do not know what it takes to get some of this good news being heralded by either news reporters or through the many channels open on the Internet for people to understand that actions taken by this Congress, led by Democrats but joined by a few--not many, only a few--Republicans helped to save the domestic auto industry.

While those are big businesses--and I am going to talk about small businesses in a minute--the Senator from Ohio is exactly correct when he says the help to save the domestic auto industry was not just about saving big auto, it was about saving the thousands of small suppliers and small businesses that are part of this manufacturing chain. That would have been lost.

Everything we have tried has not worked as well, but the things we have put into place are starting to have some benefit and some evidence-based data to support the efforts that have been made.

The Senator from Ohio raises one very good example. I would like to talk about something complementary to this issue today.

Access to capital equals job creation. The Democratic Congress is leading the effort to pass a bill targeted to the small businesses of America that are truly the engines of economic growth. We know big companies supply many jobs around the world and in our country, whether it is big oil, big insurance, big finance or big auto.

Right beneath that surface of all those big names we hear all the time, whether it is General Motors or Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil, there are millions of small businesses. To be exact, 27 million small businesses in America; 20 million people are self-employed and 7 to 8 million small businesses that hire fewer than 500 people, many of them hiring less than 250 and the majority of them hiring less than 50.

Madam President, you are on the Small Business Committee. We do not hear those names the way we should, whether it is Casey Tubing or whether it is Big Al's Sandwich Shop or whether it is Mandina's restaurant in New Orleans, where I just ate last week. That is one of the best restaurants in the world, and I had the privilege of eating there in my hometown. Whether it is the restaurants, small manufacturers or entrepreneurs building different technologies to support the big businesses of the world, now is the time to focus on them.

We have done some things--tax cuts, tax credits, and support--over the last year and a half, but the small business bill that is on the floor today, tomorrow, and this week, will, if we can get 60 votes to pass this bill, send a real shot of hope and optimism across the country to build on the successes of the strengthening of the auto industry, to build on the successes of the stabilization of the financial markets, if we can take that next step--investment in infrastructure from the stimulus fund--and now take the next step to provide access to capital, through a very strategic, well-thought-out, and fully funded bill, I might add--which equals job creation.

The Members have heard me speak about a particular business. I continue to speak about them because they are a great example of what we are talking about when we say that small businesses with great promise, a great product, and very strong leadership are having difficulty getting access to the capital they need to hire workers and expand.

I again use the example of Georgetown Cupcake. I should have brought a box with me to the floor because they are very recognizable. Not only is this a growing, popular, exciting business in the DC area, it also has its own reality television show called DC Cupcakes. The real name of the business is Georgetown Cupcake.

It was founded by two sisters who leveraged their entire savings, borrowed here and there to try to start a very interesting and counterintuitive concept to start a cupcake company in the middle of a recession. Who would think it would work? Lines out the door early in the morning, late at night in the sticky heat or the cold of winter. You can go by Georgetown Cupcake and there is a long line. One of the more popular gifts to give when you go to a dinner party now or when you want to acknowledge the good work of a friend is to send them a dozen cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcake.

Do you know they went to bank after bank--with lines out the door, with a product that was obviously popular to even the casual observer-- and they were turned down until finally a community bank, Eagle Bank, one of the largest lenders to small business in this region, stepped up and said yes. We need others to start saying yes to small business and that is what our bill does.

We need to start saying yes to Main Street. We have done enough saying yes to Wall Street. That is what our

bill does. It says yes to Main Street. This bill establishes a $30 billion strategic partnership with healthy community banks, not troubled banks. This bill is not for banks. It is for small businesses. But this bill, in its principle, trusts community banks with their know-how and their understanding of their neighborhoods. This bill recognizes rural communities in America that are starving for capital and says: We want to work in partnership with you. We think that $30 billion, according to the experts who have looked at this bill, will leverage $300 billion in affordable loans and credit to businesses just like Georgetown Cupcake.

Today they are hiring--not just the two owners who started it--125 people now work for Georgetown Cupcake, from 2 to 125, with a future without limit based on the product and their model of service.

I know in Louisiana and Texas and Mississippi, along the gulf coast, in New Hampshire, North Dakota, and Ohio, there are thousands of small businesses that with just the right partnership with a community bank to get more capital out to Main Street--not Wall Street--combined with $12 billion of tax cuts in this bill--not for big business, not for businesses that take their jobs and their products overseas but for small businesses right here on the main streets in our communities, $12 billion of targeted tax cuts, and, in addition, some strengthening of the core SBA programs that eliminate borrower's fees, increase the guarantee from 75 percent to 95 percent, and also strengthens some of the export provisions, both in the SBA and in the Commerce Department, so we can encourage our small businesses to look other places for their markets, not just in the United States, not just down the street or downtown but look to Beijing, look to other countries around the world for markets.

I just had a life-altering trip to Ethiopia, one of the poorer countries in the world, and spent time in the capital and a small town, Batu. Their future also lies in their ability to create the beautiful products we saw and their ability to export to other parts of the world.

There are beautiful products and services produced right here in America that could be absolutely used around the world. The opportunity for trade builds friendship but also builds prosperity. It is very difficult for small businesses to go through all the maturations and gyrations of figuring out how to trade in some of these markets. But the Commerce Department and many States have set up technical centers for consultation to small businesses at many of our universities. Our bill funds and supports those efforts. I am very excited about that.

I wish to show the export chart. This is where we have the potential for growth. If a consultant came in and looked at America, where are our weak points and where are our strong points, I promise this would be a strength, this would be growth potential. Less than 1 percent of small businesses are exporting. The market is overseas. Yes, we have a strong market in America, but the majority of the market of the world, the purchasing power is not in America, it is outside America.

A lot of small businesses want to grow. They not only have to sell their products around their neighborhoods, cities, and in our country, but they have to export. Our bill lays down a marker for exporting.

Overall, I have to say it is quite a balanced, well-put-together, well-thought-through bill that has been built with excellent contributions from Republican Senators and from Democratic Senators. We tried to take a lot of people's views as we have shaped this bill. We are now this week very close to passage.

Over the break, there were a lot of wonderful articles and editorials written about the bill. I wish to add to the Record an updated letter, dated September 13, from the Independent Community Bankers of America, to say again to the leadership:

On behalf of the nearly 5,000 members of the Independent

Community Bankers of America, I write to express our strong

support for the Small Business Jobs Act (H.R. 5297). . . .

And the addition of the small business lending fund in the Senate.

I have a list of additional endorsers. One can see, it is hundreds and hundreds of very powerful organizations that absolutely know this is the step we must take now if we want this recovery to reach Main Street, if we want this recovery to be about jobs--which is the whole point. That is why I am so proud of the Senator from Ohio. All you have to do is look into the face of someone who has been offered a job where they know they can save their home, they can send their children to college, they do not have to literally go live with a relative or inquire about a homeless shelter. Middle-class families are shocked with some of the options that are presented to them when they have no hope for a job.

A job, that is what the Democratic leadership has been focused on-- jobs for middle-class Americans, jobs for Main Street. We are making our way slowly but surely, and this bill will move us a great distance down that road.

I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the list of endorsers and the updated letter from the Independent Community Bankers of America. Also, I have another endorsement letter from the executive vice president of congressional relations and public policy for the American Bankers Association, another strong organization. They wanted to reiterate that while many of them cannot support TARP--this organization did not support TARP--they do support this because this is a program for healthy banks, not for troubled banks. This is a strategic partnership with community bankers who know the businesses in their community.

Let me respond to one point. I realize that part of the problem is the way the regulators are coming down a little harder than they probably need to in some instances with our community banks in an effort to prevent the banking system from reaching the excesses reached to cause all of us very serious financial loss and worldwide financial panic. I realize there have to be some adjustments to those regulations. This bill recognizes that. It doesn't address it because we don't have the jurisdiction in our Small Business Committee. That comes out of the Banking Committee. But I believe the members of our committee will very soon send to the Banking Committee a very strongly worded letter based on some of the testimony we have received--and the Presiding Officer has been in many of those meetings--from our bankers, who want to do more, who want to lend to credible, reputable businesspeople, but they say the regulators are coming down too hard on them. So we have to fix that.

We also have to focus on the balloon notes coming due on commercial real estate lending in this country, because we have to handle that very deftly or we could see a setback. This bill will not solve all problems, but I promise it will get us on the right road and headed in the right direction. Then with some appropriate modifications on the regulatory side for the community banks, to make sure they are operating with full integrity but that they are also being given the latitude to do what they are supposed to be doing, which is lending affordable credit to businesses, and with some additional other steps, I believe we can have this recession on the run. That is my goal, and I know that is a goal that is shared not only by the President of the United States but by Members of Congress as well, and I hope of many people in the world. We are all working on that as hard as we can.

I know some of my other colleagues are going to come and speak about this bill. We will be taking up one amendment on this bill, and it is a very important amendment that needs to get a resolution on the 1099 section of the small business reporting obligations. We need to have some significant changes. I hope we can get that done this week. There are plans underway to have it addressed, and we will be debating that this week on the floor. But whatever the outcome of the arguments about that amendment--because that provision doesn't go into effect until 2012, and it is September 2010 right now--we have some time to work that out. We may work it out this week. We may get the 60 votes on either the Nelson or the Johanns amendment, and the issue will be addressed either completely or partially. But if not, we have time to work that out, and the business community has my commitment to do so.

It is very important that this bill be passed this week. I see Senator Merkley and Senator Cantwell on the floor, and I am going to yield time to both of them. They have been leaders on this issue. I will mention that Senator Boxer talked to me a minute ago on the floor. She said to me: Senator, please, let people know that as I traveled through California that was the main topic of conversation; and that she herself went to 15 or 20 small businesses that couldn't wait for this bill to pass because they know there is real help for them.

This bill was built for them. It wasn't built for business and small businesses just to get the crumbs that fall from the table. This bill has been built with them in mind. We know they are the engines to get this economy started again. We can't wait to get it passed. We can't wait to get it to the President's desk. We believe it will have an immediate and substantial impact on their ability to hire new workers and to create the kind of economic activity that will lead this country and, frankly, the world out of this very troubling economic time.

I yield for the Senator from Oregon, who has not only been a lead supporter but a designer of many of the pieces of this bill, and I can't thank him enough for his tireless efforts on behalf of small business, not just in Oregon but around the country.

Madam President, I appreciate the chairman yielding me just a few minutes. I wish to associate myself strongly with his remarks and urge our colleagues on this side to vote against the DeMint amendment. The Senator from Montana is absolutely correct. It is a stunt, and it is a very sad stunt.

If the Senator from South Carolina is trying to wave the flag of small business to try to convince anybody to vote for his amendment, I wanted to put some things in the Record that might convince them otherwise. This is a recent report that came out from the Tax Policy Center, the Urban Institute, and the Brookings Institution--very well respected. It is dated August 3, 2010.

I quote:

If the objective--

Which would be the extension of all the Bush tax cuts--

is to help small business, continuing the Bush tax cuts on

high-income taxpayers isn't the way to go [because] it would

miss 98 percent of small business owners . . .

It would miss 98 percent of small business owners.

So I beg my colleagues, if you want to have this debate over tax cuts, we can have it at a different time. Please don't wave small business out here.

What the Senator from South Carolina will do--the effect of his amendment, according to this very reputable report--would completely miss 98 percent of small businesses in America. They are desperate for help. His amendment misses them by a mile. If we were in target practice today, he wouldn't pass. He wouldn't hit the target for a mile.

I have been on this floor for over 2 weeks with dozens of Members on this side begging the Republican Party on that side to do something before we leave to help small business. There is $12 billion of tax cuts directly to them. The Senator from South Carolina voted no.

We have $30 billion that will turn into a $300 billion lending program directly to small businesses. Small businesses are the only people who could get it and community banks are the only people who could access it. Did the Senator from South Carolina vote yes or no? He voted no.

This is a stunt, and it is a sad stunt. I tell my colleagues, there is a lot at stake. I know my 4 minutes is over, but I wanted to come and strongly urge my colleagues to follow the lead of the chairman and vote no on this sad stunt.

Madam President, I add my voice in support of coming to closure on this important issue. I thank Senator Dorgan and Senator Lincoln for their extraordinary leadership for the Pigford and Cobell claimants. We are very close to settling a grave injustice that has gone on in two communities, one the Native-American community and the other the African-American community. I surely hope we can find a way forward in the next few hours, before we leave, to get this done; if not, that it would be one of the first orders of business when we return.

Explanations have been made beautifully on both sides. I represent 1,000 African-American farmers. I am going to fight for them and advocate for them and continue to bring their cases before this body until we get justice.

People in Louisiana generally, of many different races, understand systematic injustice. Talking about oil moneys not coming the way they should, there are many people in Louisiana right now shaking their heads in great sympathy with the stories the Senator from North Dakota shared with us about Native Americans.

I support the Pigford settlement. I support the Cobell settlement. I hope we can find the $5 billion, approximately, so that it does not affect the deficit, paid for in a responsible way to end this discrimination and to provide some hope and support to these families.

I was proud to send Clarence Hawkins' name to run the USDA in Louisiana, the first African-American administrator to do so, former mayor of Bastrop. The President appointed him at my suggestion. We are making some headway in Louisiana to rectify past injustices.

Again, I thank Senators Dorgan and Lincoln for their leadership.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I rise to speak on an issue that is still pending before this body. Unfortunately, it looks as though we will not be able to wrap this up in the next few hours. It looks encouraging that we may be able to take it up immediately when we return in September.

Before I speak about that, I compliment Senators Lincoln, Casey, Harkin, and others who have come to the floor in the last few hours but have been working for months, if not years, on the child nutrition bill. It is quite extraordinary that this Chamber at this late hour, because of the work of Senators Lincoln, Harkin, Casey, and others, has decided by unanimous consent to pass a significant and major piece of legislation the Senator from Pennsylvania beautifully described. I compliment all of them for their work.

I wish we had been able to do the same thing for the small business bill we have been fighting for, the Small Business Job Creation Act of 2010. We can't seem to get to a point where we can get unanimous consent. So we will have to fight this out a step at a time. We had some significant votes this last week by including a Republican amendment, including in the small business bill a $30 billion lending program. We have potentially other aspects to strengthen it. But the bill is in extremely good shape.

I wish to put this up for a visual. I know people will find it hard to believe we could have literally over 100 organizations, extraordinarily strong and powerful bipartisan, conservative, moderate and liberal organizations, supporting small business. It may seem surprising that with all this support, we couldn't pass the bill before we leave. I wish to call out again just a few: The American Hotel and Lodging Association, the American International Automobile Dealers Association, the Associated Builders and Contractors of California, the California Bankers Association, Engineering Contractors, Hispanic Bankers of Texas, National Association of Self-Employed, National Restaurant Association, Recreation Vehicle Industry Association, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. I just listed one-half dozen or a dozen. Members can see we have hundreds of extraordinary organizations that have stepped up to say what I have been saying, what the Senator from Washington, Ms. Cantwell, has been saying, what the senior Senator from Washington, Senator Murray, and Senators Boxer and Merkley are saying: We are not going to end this recession until we find a way to get capital and cash in the hands of small business. That will lead the way out of this recession. It is not going to be led by Wall Street. It is going to be led by Main Street.

I would like to put up our Main Street sign. Main Street is going to lead the way. There was a beautiful article written by Harold Meyerson. It was dated August 4 in the Washington Post. The article is entitled ``Jobs in the Cards?'' It reads, in part:

All things considered, American big business is doing just

fine, thank you. Profits, productivity and exports are up.

New hires, rehires and wage increases, as I have written, are

nowhere to be seen. They're no longer part of the U.S.

corporate business plan, in which higher profits are premised

on having fewer employees. Sell abroad, cut costs at home--

the global marketplace that American business has created is

paying off big-time.

Not so for American small business, which inhabits those

less rarified realms of the economy in which depressed

domestic demand and bottled-up credit remain a mortal threat.

The great private-sector trickle-down machine has largely

stopped working for small business.

He is right. If we don't get small business started up again and focus on them and help them, this recession will never come to an end. Maybe that is what some people on the other side of the aisle want. Maybe they put politics before progress. But this is dangerous, it is wrong, and it is painful. We have to figure out a way.

I ask unanimous consent to have the article from which I just quoted printed in the Record.

The bill we have put forward, supported by hundreds of organizations, has a way forward.

I wish to also include for the Record another editorial by Mr. Richard Neiman of the Wall Street Journal. I submit it again because it is so good. The Journal mistakenly editorialized against this bill, but there are people sending letters to the Wall Street Journal to take a second look. Richard Neiman is one of them.

He writes:

Unlike TARP, the SBLF would incentivize banks to loan by

lowering the dividend rate at which banks must repay the

government if the banks meet lending performance metrics.

Further, the SBLF removes the TARP stigma that discouraged

small banks from participating in government programs that

support lending. It is these banks that are the primary

source of credit for small businesses which lack the same

access to capital markets as large companies.

The SBLF is not a sequel to TARP, but it can be a segue

toward a stronger future for our nation's small businesses

and their employees.

I ask unanimous consent to have this article printed in the Record.

I also ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record another very nice article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal by Ruth Simon, one of their reporters, who outlines a particular story about Pinnacle Bank, which is basically in support of our bill. This is a story about a bank in Florida. It will be in the Record for Members to read.

Finally, I have another article written by Barbra Barrett of the Miami Herald. It reads:

The U.S. Senate might leave town this week without

finishing up what Democrats had hoped would be a significant

political achievement . . .

On its face, the legislation would pour billions into a

slate of programs to help small business obtain federal

microloans, government contracts and export assistance.

I ask unanimous consent to have this article printed in the Record.

She is right. We have worked across the aisle as much as we could. But for some inexplicable reason, we can't seem to get unanimous consent to move such an important and extraordinary bill forward.

The small business bill, the Main Street bill, has $12 billion in tax cuts for small business. Democrats are for tax cuts for small businesses that will help them to create the jobs we need. It is very targeted, very strategic, very thoughtful, very careful, and focused on reducing the deficit as well. All I hear from the other side is: Extend tax cuts permanently to everybody, to heck with the deficit. Who cares if we get to a balanced budget. We want to go back to the way things were.

Democrats don't want to go back to the way things were. We want to go forward in a new way--with sound fiscal policy, balanced budgets, focused on Main Street, focused on small business. That is what Democrats and a handful of our Republican colleagues want-- unfortunately, not enough to get the job done. I do thank the great coalition of Senators who have helped.

I also wish to submit an article by Jeff Cox, of CNBC, ``Four Things That Could Help Companies Start Hiring Again.'' He talks about positive momentum, loans to small business, and foreign demand.

One of the things he mentions is:

American consumers--even those with jobs and savings--are

focused on paying down debt and not greasing the economic

skids.

As such, job markets may have to rely on low export prices

and consumers in robust developing economies to help generate

demand.

He is correct. We are going to have to rely on markets outside the United States to sell our goods there and pull ourselves out of this recession. Do Members think small businesses get the least amount of help with exports? No, they don't. In our bill, we have extra support for the Department of Commerce and the Small Business Administration to help small businesses in Louisiana, in West Virginia, and around the world to reach out from our main streets to main streets in foreign countries to try to sell goods. It is going to be a Main Street-to-Main Street partnership around the world. With the Internet, this is possible. Before the Internet, it would be laughable to even suggest such a thing.

But with the Internet, with the global air transportation, with expanded trucking and train transportation, we literally can move goods from Main Street right here. I would not be surprised if Georgetown Cupcake, which I

spoke about yesterday, ships their cupcakes to India or China because they are really good cupcakes and maybe they do not make them as well there. That may be a little exaggeration, but I think it makes the point that if we can help our small businesses, there is no telling where these cupcakes--and in my State, it would be King Cakes--can go to support businesses on Main Street.

So I ask unanimous consent that this article be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I know there are Senators who wish to speak, but I have one more subject to speak about before I yield the floor.

In addition to fighting for Main Street, I am going to come back here in September--and continue through the August recess with many hearings in my State and meetings in my State--to fight for justice for the gulf coast.

I have not spent a lot of time in the last week or two here on the floor on this issue because I have been handling this small business bill, but I have been spending an awful lot of time on the phone, in meetings, and in Louisiana and will continue around the country to talk about this tragedy that has occurred.

As shown on this chart I have in the Chamber, this is what the gulf coast looked like before the moratorium was put in place--this blanket moratorium, unnecessary moratorium--by the administration. We had 33 deepwater rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. As you can see, many of them were off the coast of New Orleans and Louisiana.

As shown on this other chart, this is what it looks like today. Nobody is working. There is one rig being drilled. It is the Deepwater Horizon current site of the relief well. Everybody else has been put out of business in the Gulf of Mexico. This represents, at a minimum, 40,000 direct jobs--40,000 direct jobs.

I want to show you a picture of the shallow water. This other one is of the deep water. That is what it looks like shut down. This one is of the shallow water. There is no moratorium in the shallow water. But before the moratorium, there were 55 wells in the shallow Gulf of Mexico. These wells--each one of them--represent hundreds of people supporting them and on the shore supporting them. We are down to 13. And I have to fight so hard to get one permit issued by MMS.

I am proud, very proud, that my colleague in the House of Representatives, Charlie Melancon, did what I did not believe was even possible: he got the entire Democratic caucus on record asking the President basically to lift this moratorium. Yes, there was some language in there. I would have liked it to have been immediately. But the fact that we have now every Democrat and every Republican in the House of Representatives on record lifting this moratorium and helping us get back to work in the gulf is really extraordinary.

I am looking forward to coming back to lead the effort in the Senate to follow the lead of the Congressman from the district that is most affected, Mr. Melancon, to get the gulf back to work. There are 25 idle rigs, there are 5 nondrilling operators, one Deepwater Horizon, and 2 wells being drilled. We have to get the gulf coast back to work.

So in addition to passing the small business bill that we have to pass for the whole country, we have work to do along the gulf coast. We have a liability issue to settle. We are working on a compromise. I have a justice for the gulf document I am going to submit, a bill I am going to ask to be filed right now so that we can work in earnest.

I hope that before we get back here, the President will administratively lift this moratorium. That is what he should do. We have put new safety requirements in. BP is going to pay the fines, billions of dollars of fines. They put $20 billion in escrow. Claims are being paid. That part is working fairly well. What is not working are the people in the gulf of Mexico. We do not want handouts. We do not want welfare. We do not want food stamps. We want to go back to work, and that is what we are going to work on.

So this Senate has some work to do. The House has done its job in this regard. I hope, Mr. President, you and your team and the Secretary of Interior will think very hard about the economic damage that is being done right now. I understand safety is at issue. I understand we want our oceans clean. Nobody wants them cleaner than those of us who swim in the gulf, live in the gulf, fish in the gulf, and have for decades and centuries. But enough is enough. We have to get back to work. There are things that can be done, and I submit the bill at this time.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I wish to discuss a heart wrenching tragedy that occurred in my home State earlier this week and to acknowledge the heroic efforts of our local first responders. On Monday evening, under sweltering temperatures that had surpassed 100 degrees, two Shreveport families gathered on the banks of the Red River, in Shreveport, LA, to enjoy a picnic. What is normally a routine summer outing for millions of people across America quickly turned into a disaster.

Seven teenage children from these two families had wandered off into an unfamiliar part of the river. One of the children stepped off of a sand bar and into deeper, more dangerous water and began to scream for help. The other six children followed in an attempt to rescue the drowning teen. None of the seven children knew how to swim, nor did the adults who were with them. As the seven children struggled for their lives against the treacherous waters of the Red River, witnesses called 911 for help.

Teams of first responders from Shreveport and Bossier City were dispatched and arrived on the scene at 6:30 p.m., roughly 10 minutes after the 911 call was made. Dive teams entered the water four at a time in search of the drowning children. Despite the tremendous efforts of the divers, the river's waters claimed the lives of six of the seven children. The lone survivor was rescued by a bystander named Christopher Partlan, before the dive teams could get to the area.

At 7:51 p.m., the first of the victim's bodies was recovered from the water. This unthinkable task continued for more than 2 hours before the last of the victims was recovered at 10:02 p.m.

At this time, I would like to read the names of the first responders from Shreveport and Bossier City who were dispatched to this tragic accident:

Captain John Davis; Fire Engineer Craig Bynog; Firefighter Jared Mourad; Firefighter Chad Alexander; Battalion Chief Tim Thames; and Fire Engineer Jimmy Lockey of the Shreveport Fire Department. Officer Phillip Tucker of the Shreveport Police Department; Fire Driver Chad Arnette of the Bossier City Fire Department; and Christopher Partlan, the bystander who rescued 15-year-old DeKendrix Warner.

All these brave men deserve to be recognized for their heroism. First responders in Shreveport and Bossier and in cities and towns across America protect our communities every day. We depend on them during fires, floods and other disasters and they put their lives on the line to save ours. For that, we owe them a debt of honor and gratitude.

I would also like once again to send my condolences to the Warner and Stewart families for their tragic loss. I know the Shreveport community will wrap its arms around them and pray for them, comfort them and support them during this difficult time.

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

Mr. President, I understand we are in controlled time. I will speak for the next 10 minutes, and if someone else comes to the floor, I will be happy to yield.

I know the discussion today has primarily been on our new potential Supreme Court nominee, but that is not why I have come to the floor. I have come to the floor to talk about an issue I have spent a good bit of time talking about in the last several weeks--particularly the last week--and that is the issue most Americans have on their minds right now, and that is, when is this recession going to end? That is a good question. My answer to that is that this recession is going to end as soon as we can get Main Street moving again.

The First Lady has been so wonderful in her advocacy to help Americans understand the importance of activity and moving, with her campaign ``Let's Move,'' to help us all get into better shape-- particularly the young children of our country. I think we can really use almost that same slogan for Main Street--to get Main Street moving again, percolating again, and generating jobs, because that is the only way this recession is going to end. We can pass bill after bill up here regarding big bank bailouts, saving the big auto manufacturers. We can step up and send money to big, troubled banks. But until we figure out a way to get money to Main Street, this recession is going to be with us a long time.

I think that is really what is on people's minds, at least in Louisiana, my home State, the places with which I am very familiar. Our situation in Louisiana is even more complicated, and right now I am not going to take the opportunity--but I will before this session ends--to talk about the gulf coast disaster and the moratorium that has been placed on drilling in the gulf, which has exacerbated our problem. Suffice it to say that on Main Street all over America, people are wondering--we know that Supreme Court Justices are important, that health care is important, and we know that stabilizing the financial situation is important.

When is Congress going to focus on Main Street and small business? That is what our bill, the small business lending bill and particularly the small business lending fund, does.

I want to start the first few minutes of this discussion--there will be some Members coming down to the floor--by reading an e-mail I received in my office 2 days ago. This e-mail was so well written and so passionate and so encouraging to me that I was afraid it was not real. I actually had my staff call the man who wrote it to make sure before I came to the floor of the Senate, because I did not want to be fooled or embarrassed by someone sending some kind of form e-mail and not being sure it was correct.

I want my colleagues to know that we called Mr. Bryan Gipson, Sr. I am going to read his e-mail because I think this says better than I could what is at stake for those who have tried to obstruct this bill, unfortunately, for many of my friends on the other side:

Dear Senator Landrieu, I wanted to start this e-mail by

telling you I am a life long Republican and a former member

of your district. I currently reside in Ocean Springs,

Mississippi, and I am a Commercial Real Estate Broker. I

watched with great interest today as the Senate debated H.R.

5297, the Small Business Jobs Credit Act. I was very, very

disappointed by the unjustified stonewalling of the

Republicans. To think that a Bill, whose only purpose is to

provide funding for small business, create jobs and help the

most battered segment of our economy recover from the worst

recession of all time could be held up because one side had

their feelings hurt because they don't have enough amendments

is sickening.

Senator Landrieu, I am a commercial real estate broker. My

company sells hotels, throughout the southeastern United

States. We have not completed a transaction in almost two

years. There is no third party commercial financing for

commercial real [estate] in the United States today our

industry has been battered because of this. Hotels are

closing through out this country and workers are being laid

off. These workers make beds and clean rooms. They work as

wait staff, accountants, reservationists, and front desk

personnel. Thousands of these hard working Americans have

been laid off. It's time for Congress to do something to put

Americans back to work on the jobs.

As I said, I am a life long Republican. I was sick to my

stomach to see the leadership of the Republican Party do

everything in their power to kill this bill. Please remind

them they have lost my vote. I will do everything in my power

to defeat my two Republican Senators when election time

comes. It is plain to see the Senators of the Republican

Party are holding the American economy and it's workers

hostage for selfish, partisan politics, and the American

voters are tired of it.

I will not read his last sentence because I do not think it is appropriate for the Senate.

Today I had the opportunity to speak with one of the region's most outstanding community bankers by phone. My phone call was prompted by a roundtable I held earlier this week--it was not yesterday but the day before--with some of the country's most outstanding entrepreneurs. I had several individuals from Louisiana--surprising to many people. You may be surprised to know that New Orleans, LA, has been on the front cover of Entrepreneurial magazine twice in the last year because after Katrina, some of the leaders, including myself, had the sense to say: We are not going to build back just what we had; we are going to build back better and stronger, and part of that is inspiring young people around the country to come and start new businesses in New Orleans and help us build a greater city and a better region.

We also had individuals from all parts of the United States. One of the two most interesting individuals who owns arguably the most famous small business in America today, Georgetown Cupcake, better known as DC Cupcakes, the reality show--Sophie and Katherine were in my committee 2 days ago. I want to tell you what they said, and nobody is going to believe it. There is a transcript of this record.

This is one of the most famous, most popular small businesses in America. They have their own reality show. They testified to my committee that they could not themselves get a business loan. They knocked on bank after bank until finally a community banker--the chairman of the bank is Ron Paul. I spoke with him today. It is EagleBank right in this region. They finally gave them a loan which they paid back in 3 months. For 2 years they used every credit card they had. They used their entire savings. Even with a line 2 blocks long--if anyone in Washington, DC, doesn't know about it, they should know about it. I have not been there, but my children have been there. They ask me to take them there all the time. The line is 2 blocks long, I hear, every night.

If a small business not 10 minutes from the Capitol, with a line 2 blocks long, cannot get a loan from a bank and has to go through all this trouble--but they finally, thank goodness, found a community bank to lend them the money--do I have to say anymore about what we are trying to do?

Another young woman showed up in our committee. She graduated magna cum laude from Duke University. She received a scholarship from the Fulbright Scholarship Program. She went to Sri Lanka to work for a year under the Fulbright Scholarship Program. Her idea as a scholar was that maybe she could create a business using environmentally sensitive methods and practices designing very fashionable clothes that she could then sell to college students because our college students today are much more sensitive to the environment and to these sorts of things than we were when we were in college.

She had a very brilliant idea. She had a great market. She went to bank after bank with $250,000 worth of purchase orders and could not get a loan and does not have one today.

If our young people who are graduating at the very top of their class, who have the most extraordinary ability to create jobs in America, cannot get money in their hands, we should close these doors and turn these lights off because it is never going to get fixed. That is what this bill tries to do.

It has been stopped by petty politics or slowed down considerably. We are

still hoping we can get this done by the other side, which wants to pretend this is not important or that the Small Business Lending Program that got 60 votes on the floor of the Senate is somehow damaging to this bill. It is the heart of this bill.

I want to use fact versus fiction to clear up another point. I could go on and on about what these young entrepreneurs running small but extraordinarily exciting businesses said at that roundtable. This bill will help them, and we are going to continue to do more.

One of the things I want to speak about today is fact versus fiction about the one article that has criticized us. It was an AP article that was written 2 days ago and was circulated in defense of the opposition, so I want to take this issue by issue.

The article was written by Daniel Wagner of Associated Press. When we called him, he admitted that he failed to call anyone from our office or the Small Business Committee to get any real information about the bill. He had not written in an updated way. He had gotten this information some months ago. He was frustrated. He couldn't get Treasury to respond, so he just wrote the article.

The problem is half of his article is completely factually wrong about this bill. I want to go point by point.

He comments in his article:

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke and others have

questioned whether the problem is lack of capital or if there

simply are not enough creditworthy borrowers.

I have given two examples in the last 2 or 3 minutes about creditworthy borrowers. I think every Member of Congress knows a dozen businesses that are good, solid businesses with good cashflow and a good product with a good record that are beiing told they cannot get funding. If you do not believe me or what you are hearing back in your States, the fact is our Chairman stated last month:

It seems clear that some creditworthy businesses, including

some whose collateral has lost value but whose cash flow

remains strong have had difficulty obtaining the credit they

need to expand and, in some cases, even continuing to

operate.

Part of the article, quoting the Chairman, is factually wrong. Chairman Bernanke did not say that. Chairman Bernanke said what I just quoted.

The second fiction he said was that Congress was at work on a new program to send $30 billion to struggling community banks. No, that is not what our bill does. We do not send $30 billion to struggling community banks. We allow healthy banks, not struggling banks, healthy community banks to apply, completely voluntary, for money from the Treasury so they can increase the capital they have to lend hopefully to wonderful young people such as the two young women who started Georgetown Cupcake, now better known nationally as DC Cupcake, and other small businesses that are hiring people and increasing their locations and starting to bring this recession to an end.

The facts are that you have to be a healthy bank to apply for this program.

The next thing Mr. Wagner said--and he has retracted this already. We appreciate him retracting this statement. He said:

Under the new program, the 775 banks on the government

problem list can qualify for the bailout.

A, that is not true, it is not a bailout. And B, they are expressly prohibited in our bill. The 775 banks on the problem list would be ineligible to receive capital. Only the strongest banks, and they are registered as CAMELS 1, 2, and 3, not 4 and 5. Finally he said:

This time the money is more likely to disappear as a result

of bank failure and fraud.

It is not the community banks we have to worry about failing. Their record has been extraordinary. In fact, there was not one bank in 2005, 2006, all the way up to 2007--there were less than a handful of community banks that failed. In 2009 and 2010, those numbers shot up because of the despicable and reckless policies perpetrated by many big banks and international lenders which put the whole economy at risk because of what they did, and then that had a ripple effect on our economy.

It is not going to be the small community banks that take this Nation down, I can promise my colleagues. It is going to be the small community banks and other nonbank lenders in places that have a hard time getting the capital they need to expand that are going to lead this country out of the recession.

So I wish to put this up--this ``Party of No''--because, unfortunately, we have on the other side an unprecedented number of objections. This is the graph that I think Senator Stabenow has used for 246 objections. It is one thing, of course, politically, if you want to say no to the President. I don't think it is great, but sometimes you have to, if you don't believe the President is right. I understand that. But to say no to the small businesses of America, most of which have done absolutely nothing wrong but try to build their businesses and try to expand their businesses? To say no to them is one no gone too far.

I wish to put up the chart about the businesses that will create jobs, because if we would spend some time focused on passing this bill--and I hope this chart I am using is an effective visual for the share of net new jobs by firm--these are our own statistics for 1993 to 2009. So for the last 16 years, 65 percent of new jobs have come from small firms. This goes to show that if we can get this bill--and maybe there are others but this bill for certain because it was built with bipartisan support. It has $12 billion of tax cuts targeted directly at small business. It is a $30 billion small business, healthy bank partnership fund that will help spur investments on Main Street, and it is an increase of lending limits and loan guarantees through the Small Business Administration for their very tested and proven and successful lending programs. This bill could have a tremendous impact on Main Street throughout America.

We have only a few more days here. The leaders are still talking about what can be worked out. I would suggest we get this bill on the floor, we agree to one amendment on both sides, and get this bill passed for the American public. I know the Chair has been supportive, and I see Senator Cantwell and others on the floor who have been arguing successfully and passionately for this bill. When people say we need more amendments, this bill has been built with bipartisan amendments, section by section--I have said this over and over again-- every section of this bill.

We call this chart our red-line, four-page outline of this bill. It is well known and has been well reviewed by not only Members here but staff and reporters as well who can see for themselves. This is a Snowe-Landrieu; Crapo-Landrieu-Risch; Snowe-Landrieu; Snowe-Merkley. I mean, every single section has been bipartisan, and we now have a strong bipartisan vote for the lending program. So all we need is for the leaders to agree on one amendment. It could be the 1099 amendment, which has generated a great deal of interest around here. Let's make a decision about how we move forward with that provision. I think it needs to be adjusted or completely repealed, but that is worth debating. Let's get that done and move this bill forward.

In addition, as I yield the floor for the Senator from Washington, we continue to receive more and more endorsements. Today, we got a letter from the United States Conference of Mayors:

On behalf of the Nation's mayors, I am writing to thank

you, Senator Landrieu, for supporting and sponsoring the

Small Business Jobs Act. The U.S. Conference of Mayors firmly

supports this legislation and urges all Senators to vote for

its immediate passage.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the entire letter.

This recession is a national recession, but you feel it in every town, in every community, in every city where mayors and Governors out there--Democrats and Republicans--are fighting every day to bring vitality back to their communities. This bill has the potential to help them, to be some wind under their wings and to get this job done.

So I am proud to have the thousands of mayors in our country who have stepped up to support this legislation. I am also proud to have almost 28, if not 30, Governors who have written personally, sometimes numerous letters, to say they support this legislation.

I have used the time in conclusion to rebut the only article we know of that was a negative one. We have had many positive articles and editorials, and we are grateful because the bill is self-explanatory. The one reporter who wrote, I thought, a very misleading story has retracted portions of it, which he admitted were not accurate, and I have given the detail to rebut the other sections of his article. But we continue to pick up endorsements.

The bill is bipartisan. We have to get Main Street moving again. When we do--and only when we do--will this recession end and our constituents can go back to work or they can fulfill their dreams to build a business of their own that can employ them and bring security, prosperity, and happiness to their families. But this Congress should act and we should act now--in the next 24 hours.

I yield the floor.

I understand the time controlled by the Democrats is coming quickly to an end. I ask for 2 more minutes, if that is OK, to wrap up.

Five minutes. That is great.

I thank the Senator from Washington, who has been a partner on this bill with me from day one. She is a member of the Small Business Committee, quite an expert in the field of small business financing having built her own small business successfully and helped many others to build others. She brings that expertise to the Senate. I appreciate her focus and commitment.

Together with some of our other colleagues we have worked the extra hours and time, and we are still hopeful that we can get this bill done before we leave for the August break to go home and work in our States through that time.

I want to read just another short paragraph into the record. This is going to appear, I understand, in the Wall Street Journal tomorrow. I received a copy of it today. It is going to be in response to a wrongheaded editorial by the Wall Street Journal. They entitled their editorial a couple of days ago, ``Son Of TARP.''

As Senator Cantwell from Washington said, this doesn't look like TARP, it doesn't walk like TARP, it is not TARP. But there are a few critics out there who, because they cannot say anything bad about it, want to put a bad name on it and scare people away.

This gentleman, Mr. Richard Neiman, let me say, first, is a superintendent of banks for the State of New York. He knows something about them, and is a member of the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel. So he most certainly understands TARP since he is an overseer of TARP. I think he would know if this was TARP, but this is what he writes-- ``Small Business Lending Fund Will Help Recovery, Jobs.''

Your editorial, ``Son of TARP'' [on] July 30 is

unfortunately titled, and underestimates the potential of the

proposed Small Business Lending Fund.

Small business growth is the only way out of this

recession, yet our entrepreneurs are not being provided the

credit they need, as the TARP Congressional Oversight Panel

often hears from small business owners. Our recent report on

the issue demonstrates that, during the crisis, lending to

small business fell by 9 percent at our Nation's largest

banks. . . .

In other words, the Nation's big banks took the TARP money and cut lending to small businesses. That is what happened. This bill is to reverse that and to give small banks a fighting chance, and small businesses, to get a voluntary lending fund to start flowing capital to small business. He says:

Unlike TARP, the SBOF would incentivize banks to lend by

lowering the dividend rate at which banks must repay the

government if banks meet lending performance metrics.

Further, the SBLF removes the TARP stigma that discouraged

small banks from participating in government program. . . .

The SBLF is not a sequel to TARP,

It is not the son of TARP, it is not the daughter of TARP----

but it can be a segue toward a stronger future for our

Nation's small businesses and their employees.

I could not have said that better myself. I ask unanimous consent to have the letter printed in the Record.

In my final minute I would like to change subjects and speak about another subject that is very important to people in Louisiana, particularly to some of my African-

American farmers and the small communities that they primarily reside in throughout my State.

These are farmers who were blatantly discriminated against in the last several decades. We have a bill right here before us. It is referred to as the Pigford settlement. This group of farmers took their grievances to the courts. Before they could get a final judgment from the courts, the Justice Department stepped in and smartly attempted to settle this situation because the Federal Government is probably going to be very liable for past discriminations that were blatant and proven.

We came up with a fair way to solve this issue, to get money to many African-American farmers. We have acknowledged there were some wrong things done by the Department of Agriculture and by the Federal Government. We want to try to make amends. We cannot make everything right and everything perfect, but the Pigford settlement is a fair and just resolution to this issue. One thousand African-American farmers in Louisiana would be benefited by this settlement.

Again, this is being held up. I don't understand why, but I wanted to lend my voice to say that this settlement is not just about correcting past wrongs but about ensuring future prosperity. It is time for Congress to end the 12-year delay and approve this settlement as quickly as possible.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate resume legislation session.

I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to a period of morning business with Senators permitted for up to 10 minutes each; that upon the conclusion of the so-called wrap-up period the Senate then resume executive session and continue the debate on the Kagan nomination provided for under the previous order in the specific hour blocks.