Floor Statements

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

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

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

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

I understand, under a previous order, I have the next hour to follow up on Senator Durbin's comments. I would like to claim that hour now.

Mr. President, the Senator from Illinois is absolutely correct. One of the last remaining works that we have to do, as we try to wrap up this portion of the session as we move to an August work period in our home States and our home districts, is to get this small business bill passed. It has been a focus of the Democrats. It has also been the focus of some Republican support. That is what I wish to talk about today. I wish to make sure we understand that the team that is following this bill is a broad team of hundreds of organizations from the Chamber of Commerce to the National Federation of Independent Business, to the Small Business Alliance, to the Community Bankers of America, to individual business owners around the country, as the Presiding Officer knows because he himself has been a great leader in this effort. The point I wish to make in the first few minutes of this hour is the tremendous bipartisan support and input that has gone into this bill to get us to this point.

There is some criticism that is not valid. There is a criticism out there that Democrats are trying to ram this through and Republicans have not been able to offer amendments. The facts are that this bill, this small business job growth bill, has been built through two committees, the Finance Committee and the Small Business Committee.

I have the pleasure and honor of chairing the Small Business Committee. Senator Baucus chairs the Finance Committee. For the last, literally, year, these two committees have been working to bring a bill to the floor that is focused on Main Street, not Wall Street; that is focused on job creation, not capital accumulation; focused on job creation on Main Street through traditional, old-fashioned, smart strategic lending to small businesses that have the potential to grow.

We know there is no disagreement that the new jobs created--the Presiding Officer will know--will be created by small businesses that do not hoard their cash. They cannot wait for a better day. They have to act now. That is the nature of small business. Lucky for us it is, because if we give them a little help, they can start creating that one new job or two new jobs or three new jobs. But if it is done millions of times across the country, which it can be, it can make a difference in a significant way by creating literally the millions of jobs we need.

If people want to know why this is a jobless recovery, I would like to say--because it seems like it is--that is because we have been giving a lot of money to the big guys: a lot of money to Wall Street, a lot of money to big manufacturers, large manufacturers. But if we would spend some time today--and we have over the course of drafting a bill which we have done in a bipartisan way--to get money to Main Street, we might see an end to this recession. That is the hope of all of us.

This is a description, Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010. These are just the small business provisions--small business access to credit. You will see here, this was done jointly by myself and my ranking member, Senator Snowe. It passed our committee 17 to 1, and we have almost an equal number of Republicans and Democrats on our committee. It passed with overwhelming support. This will increase 7(a) loans from $2 to $5 million, increase 504 loans from $1.5 million to $5.5 million, and increase microloans from $35,000 to $50,000.

It also extends the 90-percent guarantee on loans up from 75 percent and eliminates fees.

Let me read what one business in Louisiana says. I can probably read you thousands of testimonies, but let me read from one. Sawyer Industrial Plastics of West Monroe has been in existence for 32 years. It has provided plastic repair parts for the paper industry. Mr. Sawyer's line of credit was canceled by his bank so he needed to term out his debt as well as arrange for expansion capital to move into other areas that could design plastic parts.

Mr. Sawyer's existing business would service his debt, but without capital to expand into new markets and industries, his long-term business prospects would be tied to the weakening paper industry.

With this provision that was in the stimulus package but which has expired, which is in this bill--which will reignite when this bill passes but not a minute before--Mr. Sawyer was able to get a 90-percent guarantee. It allowed the lender, North Louisiana BIDCO, to leverage its capital and provide more funds to meet this $700,000 loan. The waiver of the guaranty fee added over $20,000 to available working capital.

In other words, instead of paying the $20,000 to the Federal Treasury, under the provision we are passing, he paid it to himself, which is the point of our legislation.

We have $12 billion in tax cuts for small businesses and that is not including this fee waiver I am talking about now. This is a significant amount of money to go into the pockets of small business owners. Mr. Sawyer, from my State, took that $20,000 and, instead of paying a fee to the Federal Government, we are waving those fees under this bill, and he hired an additional worker.

That is the point. That is the point of this bill you have helped to draft. We are reducing fees, we are reducing taxes, and we are targeting much needed capital--access to capital to small businesses, which will create the jobs that lead us out of this recession. So he added a new employee and he added some new product lines.

Another story comes from First Bank and Trust. This is in Mandeville, LA. It is about Woolf Harris, Inc., a 14-year-old company. The acquisition of a building recently left the business short of cash. Although the national economy turned down, residual effects of two recent hurricanes continue to push demand for the product. It is a plumbing supply business. Lacking adequate collateral for a conventional loan, First Bank and Trust--again, a local trusted community bank--was able to extend a $120,000 line of credit, with a $125,000 3-year term loan for working capital to Woolf Harris. With the 90-percent guaranty, First Bank felt comfortable taking the soft collateral available to secure the loan while being able to provide Woolf Harris a most favorable interest rate of 2.25 over prime.

This might not sound like a lot, but to small businesses out there struggling, getting a loan at 2.25 points over prime is much better and much preferable to having to put it on their credit card and pay 16 percent or 20 percent or 24 percent or run down to the payday lender because they are so desperate for cash and pay 36 percent or 50 percent.

If we can't help small business now, I don't know when we can. This bill we

put together with bipartisan support is supported by the Independent Community Bankers, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber, the National Small Business Association, the National Federation of Independent Business, the Small Business Majority, the National Association of the Self- Employed, and, yes, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They told me this morning they are proud that their membership is actually representative--96 percent is made up of small business. So I am proud to have the Chamber support for this legislation.

Now we need all these coalitions to support bringing this debate to an end. We agree there are some amendments, two or three, that could be added--on the Republican side, on the Democratic side. We could have an open debate. But there is such a thing as amending a bill to death. I do not think that is going on. I hope it is not going on. I believe both leaders are working in good faith.

But to the small business team out there that has done such a good job in building bipartisan support for this bill, I hope you will trust me when I say that at some point the debate has to come to an end and we have to vote on a bill. If we do not, we will leave here--I do not want to be one who does leave here without doing one of the most important things that I think we were sent here to do; that is, create jobs. The people creating the jobs are not us, it is the small businesspeople out there. To leave without this bill--fully paid for, $12 billion in tax relief, reduced regulations, reduced fees, and expansion of very popular and broadly supported programs--would, in fact, be a shame.

I see the Senator from Virginia who has worked so diligently on this bill. If I could, as I relinquish the floor to him, I would like to ask him if he would comment, as a former Governor of the State of Virginia and someone knowledgeable about the programs he initiated as Governor, how this bill might be helpful to those programs and what other Governors are saying about this bill today, if the Senator would not mind answering that question.

Mr. President, I wish to thank my colleague from Virginia for that explanation and for his commitment to this bill and this effort. He was an extremely successful Governor before he became a Senator, and I say ``successful'' measured by the way those of us in public life are measured: by results. He left his State with a surplus. I know he did not do that singlehandedly, but it is a great feat these days to leave office with a surplus, and he did, with very high approval ratings and with a reputation as being very strong on fiscal matters. I think that is what our Congress needs. I thank the Senator so much for his help on this bill because that is exactly what people are looking for--a smart, strategic way to move big pieces of legislation forward but with our eyes on the bottom line and our eyes focused on results, not bureaucracy, not regulation, not additional rules, et cetera, but real results.

That is the way this bill was built. It was built with, as the Senator said, menus and choices, not one-size-fits-all. We did not say: There is one way to save small business in America, and this is what we are going to do. We said: We have heard a lot of good ideas. Let's try to put them together in a bill--some strategic tax cuts, some reduced regulation, some reduction in fees, and some options for capital.

Options--none of this is mandatory. All of this is voluntary on the part of the banks--all voluntary. If they want to use those programs to lend to small businesses, they can. No one is forcing them. No one is requiring them. And if they do, they can actually make a significant profit. So it really is putting the incentives in the right place.

That is why this is not anything like TARP. We are not using TARP funds to fund this. We are not designing it like TARP. TARP was a completely different program in size, scope, and focus. TARP stands for Troubled Asset Relief Program. It was for big banks that were failing. This is for small community banks on Main Street that are healthy, so that they can lend to the small businesses that can grow with the money the banks lend.

Let me read a letter we just received from the Lake Charles area, which is the southwestern area of Louisiana, from a business, Lake Area Marine.

It says: Dear Senator Landrieu. Lake Area Marine strongly supports your substitute bill, the Small Business Lending Fund Act, and the other parts of the bill. Our company is based in Lake Charles. The provisions outlined will restore much needed credit to small business owners like me, by addressing one of the primary reasons for the extent of the depression in the boating industry. By restoring the disruption in the recreational boating industry's distribution chain caused by the credit crunch, thousands of American jobs will be preserved or created.

It goes on to say: The Small Business Administration's dealer floor plan financing--which is part of this bill--is a critical component, helping, as I said, to raise the cap, from $2 million to $5 million.

We have hundreds of letters. This happens to be from a marine business, but there is floor plan financing for other businesses where large inventories are required. Although lots of people do buy products in the house from the Internet, as you know, millions of consumers still like to go to the showroom, they like to touch and feel and drive and see before they buy a car, buy a boat, buy other products. Many of these businesses in all of our States have seen their lines of credit evaporate, just go away. This bill is a lifeline for them.

So I thank the business owners, such as Jerald Link, who sent me this letter, and the thousands of business owners around the country who have said, yes, let's pass this bill now.

I see my colleague from Michigan. He also helped to craft a section of this bill. I would like him to explain the importance of that particular section which has to do with supporting weakened collateral in States such as Michigan, States such as Nevada, probably Florida, where they have seen such a depression of real estate prices. Thank goodness not so much in Louisiana, although the spill and the moratorium are giving us fits at the moment. But

last year our prices held pretty well. In Michigan, in Ohio, Florida, Nevada, California, these assessments collapsed. Small businesses were trying to function and were asked to put up collateral, and did. Then the banks came a long and said: Mr. Jones or Ms. Smith, you have collateral, but it used to be worth $500,000. Now the assessors are out there, and it is only worth $200,000. We are pulling your loan.

If we don't do something to fix that, they are going to lose their business. It is that simple. This is not complicated. It is horrifying, it is painful, but not complicated.

Senator Levin worked hard and came up with an innovative solution. Hopefully, he will speak about how this provision will technically work in Michigan and throughout many of the States.

I, again, wish to read into the Record some of the specifics about this initiative and talk about job creation by small businesses. First, to reiterate, there is great support for this bill, in large measure because it is not like TARP. It is not funded with TARP moneys. It is completely different--different focus, different scope--than TARP. What it does do is create a small business lending fund to banks with less than $10 billion in assets. TARP, although some of the money did go to middle-size and small banks, most of it was taken by the big banks, worth billions and billions of dollars. This is only for small banks, $10 billion or less. There are about 8,000 small community banks in America. The SBLF, Small Business Lending Fund, is performance based, unlike TARP, which we sort of gave the money and said: Do what you need to do with it. This says: If you take the money, you need to lend it to small business. When you do, we will give you a discounted rate so your bank can make more money, and the small business can make more money.

The most important part, equally important, the taxpayers can be repaid. This program doesn't cost the Federal Government money or the taxpayers money. It will make $1.1 billion, according to the CBO score. This is what I call smart government. This is not big or little government; it is smart government. It is leveraging the power and assets of the Federal Government. There are many to be proud of. It is using it to support Main Street so that jobs can be created, the recession can end, people can get back to work, business can flourish, and then we can work our way out of the terrible deficit situation we inherited. This recession called for additional spending which was necessary, although it is troubling. In this case we are going to make money on this program for the taxpayer.

It also supports a new small business credit initiative, as Senator Warner explained. It is going to save taxpayers $1 billion.

One of the most important components of this argument is the 81- percent job loss in the last year. This is from the national employment report. People need to know--and it is startling--that 81 percent of the jobs lost in America were from small business. Only 19 percent were from large business. The dramatic dropoff in employment has come from small business. If we do our job right on this bill today and tomorrow--not in September, not next week but today and tomorrow--if we do our job in the Senate, it will give the House enough time to deal with this before they go home, and we can give relief now. The pain is so great. The times are so desperate. They are not getting better. This is the bill that will jumpstart, jolt, be a catalyst.

We have tried other things this year. Some things have worked; some haven't. But there is great confidence that this bill we are putting forward now will do the job. It is not one size fits all. It is not mandatory. It is a smart, strategic, voluntary, public/private partnership which makes so much sense in this day and age.

I see others who may want to speak. Then, hopefully, we can get to a vote in the next few hours.

I yield the floor.

Madam President, I thank my colleague from Oregon, who has been one of the creators and designers of this bill and who has been a leading advocate and tireless in his efforts. He has conducted probably dozens of meetings in his office with Treasury officials, with Members from both sides of the aisle.

I have put this poster up in the Chamber because I want everybody to know this is what we are talking about today: small business. We spend a lot of time in this Chamber talking about lots of other issues-- foreign aid, other countries, big corporations, Wall Street--but today, in these few hours--today and tomorrow--we are going to be talking about small businesses on Main Street. Small businesses on Main Street, I think they deserve this time, and they deserve our focus.

I know there are many other issues Members of this body, both Democrats and Republicans, want to solve or try to solve before we break in a few days. But I have to say, we cannot solve every problem in the world in this bill for Main Street and for small business. Some have criticized and said: Oh, well, the Democratic leadership is not allowing amendments. Nothing could be further from the truth.

This bill was built on amendments in committee--amendments by Democrats, amendments by Republicans, negotiations. The Presiding Officer most certainly knows this. I see my colleague from Texas, and I know he will have time in a moment. But the Presiding Officer knows, because she is a member of the Small Business Committee, this bill was built on a foundation of bipartisan support for small business because we all agree we want to end this recession, and the best way to end it is by smartly investing in strategic alliances with community banks and other lenders to get money to small businesses on Main Street. That is what this bill does.

As I conclude, I am asking Members on both sides of the aisle: Let's work with our leaders. Let's not burden this bill to help Main Street with amendments that have nothing to do with small business, that have to do with other political objectives, et cetera. Let's try to come together for the benefit of all of the 27 million small businesses in America that are watching us, hoping we can take the right steps to help them end this recession and get the country moving again.

I see my colleague from Texas.

Mr. President, if the minority leader will yield for a question, I appreciate how the leaders have tried to work together, although we don't seem to be getting to an agreement at this moment, but I wanted to ask the minority leader to clarify something. When he said things got snarled up, I don't know what has been snarled. The only amendment that has been offered on this bill, which was passed with 60 votes, was an amendment offered by Senator LeMieux from Florida, who is a Republican. It wasn't mine. I was a cosponsor, but he was the lead sponsor. It was a Republican amendment that was offered on the floor and received 60 votes. Is that what he was referring to that got snarled or was it something else?

May I ask another question? I appreciate what the Senator has said, but the ranking member has made it clear for many months now that she doesn't support--and I have great respect for her-- the Small Business Lending Fund. So we actually did what we were supposed to do. We had a debate for 12 hours on the floor, and everybody got to speak. She spoke, I spoke, everyone spoke. And do you know what happened? The minority leader may remember. We got 60 votes, so we won.

Hold on. I just want to say, if that is not the process, I don't know what is. We didn't cut that deal in the back room. We told everybody what we were going to do. I stood out here for 12 hours. We voted in public. Everyone knew about it. So if that is the definition of snarled, we have a real problem.

But go ahead. Yes, I will yield for a question.

Well, I appreciate that because I do have the greatest respect for the Senator from Maine. But she has not been excited about this program. She voted no, but we got 60 votes for the program. So I think perhaps we might find a way forward.

I am going to yield in just a minute, but the minority leader said he wanted eight amendments; our side wants three. Maybe we can figure out some way to agree on five on each side and get the small businesses in America the help they need.

I don't know if the Senator from Illinois has an idea, but the Republicans want eight; we want three; let's get five.

Yes. And I thank the Senator.

I think the Senator has assessed it correctly. But we have worked in a bipartisan fashion through both the Finance Committee--and I see the Senator from Montana, the leader of that committee, is here--and through the Small Business Committee. There were a few issues that couldn't be worked out in those committees, so the idea is to bring them to the floor and get a vote. We brought the lending provision to the floor, we had a vote, and we got 60 votes.

So let's just continue to move on. If someone wants to offer an amendment to strike it and take it out--I don't think they will get that but, fine, and let's move on. It is a very strong bill.

I just want to say that the only amendment that has been adopted to this bill has been a Republican amendment--with my cosponsorship--by Senator LeMieux from Florida because he says he has a State full of small businesses that desperately need this help. So we are not that far apart. They want eight amendments; we want three. Maybe we can figure out five amendments that could be offered because I think the small businesses of America deserve our best efforts.

I thank the Senator from Illinois.

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

I wish to speak up to 10 minutes.

Mr. President, I am still hopeful we can find a way forward. Many things in life are worth fighting for and this bill is one of them. I did not know if we would have to fight 12 hours and a few days or 12 hours and a month. But we are going to continue to fight for a strong small business bill for America.

It is extremely important that we focus our attention on small business and that is what this bill does. We have a bipartisan bill. We have had a bipartisan amendment offered by the Republican from Florida, Republican George LeMieux, that got on this bill after 12 hours of debate. It is a stronger bill because of it.

Because of a request by Senator Lincoln from Arkansas and, I understand, Senator Saxby Chambliss from Georgia, the leader, our leader, included at the request of both of them--not one, but both the Senator from Georgia and the Senator from Arkansas asked for the farm disaster relief to be included. It costs $1.2 billion. The wonderful thing about it is it is paid for.

The status now is we have a very strong bill--$12 billion in tax cuts, a small business lending program and credit and collateral programs, a strengthening of all the SBA programs, the entire bill is paid for, and we have bipartisan support. What could go wrong?

Something has. I am not sure that I know all the details of it, but I do know this bill is worth fighting for. I have been joined by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business--I am going to submit again the long list of associations supporting this bill. I wish I could tell all these organizations that we could get this done tonight or in the morning. We have a vote in the morning.

If we cannot get it done in the morning, and we may, I want the leader to know we are going to work hard over the August break because small business in America is desperate for a bill such as this, with a menu of choices, things that could work for them. We have spent a lot of time focused on Main Street.

We have given a lot of tax credits for big business. We bailed out the auto industry. We bailed out Wall Street. Yet when it comes to supporting and coming to closure on an extraordinarily good bill for small business, we cannot seem to do it because one side wants eight amendments and one side wants three? We can't figure that out? Any three? Any eight? Even if they are not paid for, people can vote them up or down.

I hope these organizations that have a lot at stake in this bill, our community bankers, our realtors, homebuilders--manufacturers have worked so hard. Because of the Senator from Montana, something that the self-employed wanted--and Senator Durbin has worked on this, actually worked for 8 years to put a $2 billion tax break in for the self- employed so they can get a write-down for their health insurance. They worked on that. We tried to get it done on the health care bill and could not. Senator Baucus promised the minute we had an opportunity we would do that. That is in this bill. So we have a $2 billion tax cut for the self-employed, to help them fund insurance for this year.

We have $10 billion in other targeted tax cuts for small business as well as strengthened programs that raise the loan limits, et cetera.

I think the bill is in great shape. We just need to get it over the finish line, and I hope the Senator will continue to fight for it because he has and I hope he will continue.

I will yield for a question.

Yes.

I thank the Senator for raising that. Although it was not said publicly, I have been told privately that there is some strong objection on the Republican side for including that. I said I thought it was a bipartisan amendment, but if it is not, perhaps something could be worked out where we could have a straight up-or-down vote on that on the floor. That did not seem to satisfy the critics. Let's wait and see. I don't know how to respond other than I have heard that. I have said I think there are enough votes on the floor of the Senate, Republicans and Democrats, to vote to move that provision with this bill. If there is any doubt about it, then let's have a straight up-or- down vote on it, but we will see.

Right now, in conclusion, the bill, the package that came to the floor, has one amendment offered by Republican LeMieux and Landrieu, and the agricultural disaster. That is it. That is what is in this bill and it is worthy of a positive vote.

If there are three or four or other things that need to be amended, we should figure that out, but I am prepared to vote to move this bill to final passage because it is in excellent shape with bipartisan support--although not everybody supports every provision. We most certainly have had a very rigorous debate and hopefully we can continue to keep this bill in its current form, with maybe a few additions, but if not, it is in very good form now, and I yield the floor.

I will suggest the absence of a quorum.

I wish to speak for 2 minutes to close this out.

I thank the Senator from Alaska who has been very forceful in his advocacy for this bill and for lending the experience he has had, before he was a Senator, as a small business owner to help strengthen this bill.

I want to be very clear. As this bill stands right now, this was a bipartisan bill when it came out of the Small Business Committee and the Finance Committee and it still is a bipartisan bill. The only two changes that have been made to this bill we are going to vote on tomorrow--the only two that were made to this bill--No. 1 was a LeMieux-Landrieu amendment that added a $30 billion small business lending fund that was voted on on the floor of this Senate by 60 Senators, a voluntary small business lending fund that goes only to small community banks so they can turn around and lend money to Main Street. That is it.

In addition, the Senator was smart enough to also ask for, and it was in that amendment, an antifraud provision to save the taxpayers money from people trying to defraud the Federal Government by not using their credit cards in the right way when they pay for Medicaid and Medicare services. That is an added benefit to the taxpayer.

The third piece of this amendment, to be very clear, was an expansion of an export provision that Senator Snowe and I jointly put on the bill that the Senator did with Senator Klobuchar. So all three aspects of the LeMieux-Landrieu amendment were jointly supported by Republicans and Democrats and debated for 12 hours on this floor, voted on with 60 votes.

The other amendment that was added to this bill in late night negotiations, which was in public view and public record because it was done at about midnight in public view, was that the leader said--at the request of both Senator from Arkansas, Senator Lincoln, and the Senator from Georgia, Senator Saxby Chambliss--he was going to put in a $1.2 billion disaster loan provision for farmers, not all but many of whom are small businesses.

I know you might say why is that on this bill. This is a small business bill and that is a farming issue. It is an issue important to Members on both sides. There are not going to be that many bills passed between now and the next few days.

The farmers are an important constituency. They have broad-based support. So that is on this bill. That is it; the bill as it came out of Finance, the bill as it came out of Small Business with those two amendments--one put in by the leader on the request of Democrats and Republicans, another one added by a public vote, by the Members of this body. This is a very good bill.

I do not understand why we cannot have eight or five or three. But I want the small business community out there to know, they need to fight for this bill in its current form. We can have a debate on nuclear policy on an energy bill. We can have a debate on tax extenders on the extenders bill. We can have a debate on Tax Code changes on a finance bill. But this is a very bipartisan, strongly supported, broad-based small business bill that is going to affect every Member in a positive way.

I see my friend from Rhode Island. I do not want to take any more time, so I will yield the floor.

I thank my colleague from Washington State who may speak on this and other subjects.

She has been extraordinary. And she knows. She has built a small business that turned out to be quite a big business--very successful. So she has been there before, and she understands what businesses need, the kind of capital they need to grow.

I thank both Senators, particularly the Senator from Rhode Island for his tremendous support.

I yield the floor.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Begich.) The Senator from Rhode Island.

Thank you, Madam President.

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.

Yes.

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.

Yes.

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.

Yes.

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.

Yes.

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.

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

I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 15 minutes as in morning business. I may ask to extend my time.

I am just to speak for 1 minute now and turn it over to the good Senator from Oregon, who will speak for a few minutes on this subject, and then the Senator from Washington State, as we wait for the underlying paperwork that is going to support this effort to appear. We thought we would not let this time be wasted.

We have just finished a very important vote on unemployment compensation that is going to extend benefits for 15 million Americans who are out of work. It was a very tough negotiation, but we got it done. Now we move on to another very important issue, to try to help build our way, find our way, out of this very difficult economic time in our country.

The Democratic leadership, occasionally with a few Members from the other party, have passed some very tough but important votes to make that happen under President Obama's

leadership. We are going to continue to do that tonight and through the next couple days and in the next 2 weeks, until we take a short break, and then come back, of course, in September to continue our work.

One of the bills we are going to move to right now is the small business lending bill, a jobs bill, the jobs bill focused on small business, because as all of us on this side--and I think some on the other side--recognize, this recession is going to end as quickly or as soon as we can deliver significant help in terms of capital, access to capital, reduction in regulations, and reduction in taxes to small business.

It is not that complicated. The jobs that are going to be created in America are not going to be created by the large corporations. In fact, there have been several front-page articles in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Times-Picayune, my hometown paper, saying that actually the big corporations are making profits, they are hoarding cash, they are waiting because there is uncertainty out there on any number of fronts.

We cannot solve that entire uncertainty in the next few weeks or even maybe in the next few months, but we can lay down building blocks that will start increasing demand, giving access to capital to small business. Hiring will begin, and then the way forward will be more clear. So that is basically what this small business package does. It has three main components. I am not going to go into any detail because the Senator is here to speak. But one component came out of the Finance Committee with very broad bipartisan support. It is a tax-cut package for small business, about $12 billion--quite significant. Senators Baucus and Grassley and others worked on that package, and we will discuss that at some future time.

The other piece came out of the Small Business Committee. There are probably eight or nine major items that came out with good bipartisan support that will help to expand and strengthen the SBA programs, which is one of the pieces, one of the essential pieces of this bill.

There are three very important pieces. The tax cuts of $12 billion for small business--not for big business, not for Wall Street but for Main Street businesses, $12 billion of tax cuts. There is a very strong bipartisan provision for small business. But there is one piece in the amendment that we will offer in a minute. It is going to be a LeMieux, Landrieu, Merkley, Boxer, Cantwell, and Klobuchar amendment we will offer in few minutes.

This is going to add a lending piece to this bill for small business. It is a small business access-to-capital piece. It is not for banks, it is for small business. I would like to now turn it over to Senator Merkley, who has been one of the lead designers and advocates and champions. He has been extraordinary. He has held any number of townhall meetings in his State. The people of Oregon should be extremely grateful for his tenacity on this, to stand up to many doubters here--or some doubters--to fight for this program.

We intend to fight for it because it is for small businesses, and they are desperate. We have spent about a year and a half up here talking about big business, international business, international tax code, bailing out Wall Street.

Well, these three Senators on the floor tonight will start the discussion about helping small businesses on Main Street. If we do not do this, and if this is not in the package, it is going to be a gaping hole that will exist in this package. I believe we can get this included in this package and that this will secure a great legacy for this Congress, to turn our attention to getting capital to businesses. Twenty-seven million small businesses are out there saying: Does anyone know that we are out here?

Well, I want you to know that Senator LeMieux from Florida, Senator Landrieu from Louisiana, Senator Merkley from Oregon, Senator Cantwell, and I believe more than 60 Members of this Senate hear you, and we are going to fight now, over the course of the next couple days, to see if we can deliver for you $30 billion access to capital, which could, because it leverages itself 1 to 10, turn into about $300 billion for small business in America.

They deserve it. They are the ones that are suffering. These are the people who are losing 20 years of work, 10 years of work, not the fat cats, not the big business, not the Wall Street banks that are racking up profits out of the ceiling because we have fallen all over ourselves to stabilize Wall Street.

Well, we are about ready to put down a big fight for Main Street. You are either going to be for Main Street or you are against Main Street. We are going to see who is going to stand and be counted. This Senator is standing. I would like to ask him now to add his voice to this debate.

Mr. President, the Senator is aware that all 59 Democrats support Main Street, and we have been joined by the Senator from Florida, Mr. LeMieux. This is the LeMieux-Landrieu-Merkley- Cantwell-Boxer amendment. We will be joined by others. Would the Senator say again how we are going to explain that we did send billions to Wall Street with virtually no terms whatsoever, and now we have an opportunity to send money to small businesses on Main Street and we can't get a supermajority of Senators to do so? How are we going to explain this?

I thank the Senator from Washington.

We are joined now by the Senator from Rhode Island, who has been another champion for small business. He knows, as we all do, that small businesses are the engines that are going to lead us out of this recession. I am sure he has some information to share with us about his small businesses in Rhode Island. They must be absolutely flabbergasted that we are even having this debate because, as the Senator knows, there wasn't really this much debate when we sent billions to Wall Street with virtually no strings attached. Now we actually have to fight hard--we are going to have to do this for a couple days--to try to get some capital to small businesses in all of our States. This isn't a bank program. It is a small business program. It is a small business program for Main Street, the companies that have had their credit card rates raised, the companies that have had their lines of credit cancelled without notice.

Could the Senator from Rhode Island give us any more information as to what he is hearing in his State and why he thinks there are some Republican leaders who are adamantly opposed to this? It is mind- boggling to me.

I thank the Senator.

I wish to continue to speak as is required, not seeing anyone else on the floor. I appreciate the opportunity while we are waiting.

I love the analogy the Senator from Rhode Island mentioned about the blockade. We have breached the blockade. For the last 8 months there has been an inexplicable silence on the other side of this aisle as to why we cannot lend money to small businesses in America through the private sector. This is not a direct Federal lending program. This is not bloating the Federal budget. I hear from the other side every single day: Private sector solutions; reduce the deficit. May I say again to them now on the floor of the Senate that I have tried so hard over the last 8 months to explain this to them individually, and only one--only one so far--Republican Senator has heard the cries of his small business. Only one.

This is not a government program for banks. It is a public-private partnership lending strategy for small business. Have they not noticed that small businesses have closed their doors? Have they not noticed people in long unemployment lines that weren't just workers, they were business owners? Are they not listening? I am the chair of the Small Business Committee. I guess that is why I feel so protective of the community. It is not because I am such a great Senator; it is because I am a protective person, I guess. Some of my colleagues say it is because I am the oldest of nine children and I grew up protecting my eight little brothers and sisters. My dad laughs when I say this, but it is the truth.

I feel as though I have 27 million small businesses out there that have been a steady stream into my office since I became chair, begging with me, pleading with me, saying: Senator, does anyone know we are out here trying our best? You keep bailing out the big banks. You keep giving money to big corporations. Does anyone--anyone in Congress--hear us? I keep assuring them: Yes, people do hear you. We know how difficult it is. So I said: This isn't going to be a problem, ``Ms. Naive'' that I must be. This isn't going to be a problem. I am sure we can do this.

So I start talking to my colleagues and, sure enough, Senator Merkley and Senator Boxer had a beginning of an idea that had some problems with their general ideas, so we removed

those problems. We kept fashioning it. It kept getting better and better. The President then started talking about it. The Secretary of the Treasury started getting excited about it. We started lining up hundreds of endorsements from the independent banks, the community banks; almost every small business association in America. I am so excited I am thinking: You know, this is going to work. Then we get the score back from CBO and it doesn't cost anything. It makes $1 billion. It earns $1 billion. I am thinking: This is great. Our Republican colleagues can't possibly be against something that is a public-private partnership. It is not direct lending by the Federal Government. It is not creating a new bureaucracy. It is using the healthy community banks on Main Street that know our constituents, they know their customers, they know the businesses. They know the businesses. They want to help them, but they have restrictions on their capital. So this program allows them--voluntary, it is not mandatory; there are no onerous restrictions. You don't have to cap your salaries. You just have to be able to make good loans, and if you do, you will be rewarded by getting money at a cheaper rate than you normally would, so the community bank makes a little money. The small business gets the loans. We create jobs. People get employed. The recession starts ending. This is too good to be true. I guess it is, because lo and behold, I start hearing that the Republican leadership is opposed to this idea. I am still not believing what I am hearing.

I start going to each and every one and, sure enough, that seems to be the case. It is a shame. I can't even explain it or understand it. It has nothing to do with TARP money. It is not a TARP program. It is not a bank program. It doesn't have anything to do with banks except that we are working in partnership with banks to lend money to small businesses which are desperate for money.

I want to put up the chart to make it very clear. When the leadership over there comes and talks to me about banks not being supportive, they better come armed with some interesting data, because I have on the record the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, Neil Milner, president and CEO. There are not that many national bank organizations. There are only a few, and all of them are here. So for the other side to come to the floor and say there are some bank organizations that are not for this, they better be specific. It may be the big banks. I guess the big banks aren't for it. They can't even qualify for it. If the American Bankers Association is not for it, I understand that. They can't qualify for this. This isn't for them. They already got their money.

This is for the small banks. The only way you can even be in this program is if you have less than $10 billion. This is for the small banks. So if someone comes to this floor anytime in the next couple of days to debate this and they say: Oh, but the ABA isn't for this, I guess they wouldn't be. They are not involved in it. It is not even for them. Maybe the big banks are afraid of the competition from their community banks; I don't know. But there are 7,500 community banks out there and somebody should stand up for them. I know their PACs aren't as big. I know they don't give as many contributions. They don't have as much money as the big banks do. But they are in our neighborhoods, they are in our communities, and they know the small businesses. If we give them a little bit of help, a partnership, we could get some money to the small businesses of America.

So we have here Neil Milner, president of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors; they are strongly for it; the National Small Business Association. This isn't a bank but a strong small business association; John Arensmeyer, founder and CEO of the Small Business Majority; Independent Community Bankers of America and 28 State community bank associations. We are working on the others. I don't know why we don't have all 50, but we are working on it. Maybe there are a few community bank associations that are opposed to it. They have not shown themselves. Maybe they will. But we have 28 community bank associations for it, and the Independent Community Bankers. We have the National Bankers Association. They say:

The Obama administration--continuing its efforts to lift

the country out of a two-year recession--has hit a home run

with its proposed $30 billion Small Business Lending Fund.

This is not a bailout to small business and medium-sized

banks; it is, instead, a true investment in a brighter future

for America's working class.

It must be too good to be true, that we would actually pass an amendment that would be an investment in Main Street, an investment in America's working class. These people are working so hard right now at so many jobs to keep the roof over their heads, they don't have time to form PACs or give many contributions. I guess that is why we can't get some people to stand up and listen, but we better listen to them because they are all going to be voting in the next election. They might not have time to get organized to come to Washington and tell us about their woes, but they can walk right on down to the polls, and I hope they will remember this debate when they do. Every single Democrat is going to vote for this--every single one on our side--and we are going to have one Republican so far, and I hope we can get another one or two or three. Maybe we will be surprised and get a half dozen.

There are also hundreds of organizations that are supporting this, and I am going to read the ones I have. The American Apparel and Footwear Association; the American Bankers Association. Let me correct myself. They are for it. So for anybody who says they are not, they are for it. Arkansas Community Bankers, Associated Building Contractors, California Independent Bankers, Community Bankers Association of Alabama, Community Bankers Association of Georgia, Community Bankers Association of Illinois, Community Bankers Association of Kansas, Community Bankers Association of Ohio, Community Bankers of Iowa, of Washington State, of West Virginia, of Wisconsin, Fashion Accessories Shippers Association, Financial Services Roundtable, Florida Bankers.

I wish to thank the Florida bankers. They were very passionate in their advocacy, and both of their Senators are supporting this bill. I am extremely proud of Senator LeMieux and Senator Nelson who have stood up. They have listened to what their Florida bankers and Florida small business people are saying. They have been a State that has been most affected, or almost as affected as almost any other--maybe more. Florida has had a very difficult time. We bailed out the big banks. We bailed out the derivatives folks. We bailed out the swap kings and queens. Go through Florida. Their little shopping centers are all boarded up. Their condos are empty. The little bakeries that used to bake the doughnuts for the people who came to the condos, they can't sell any doughnuts. There is nobody there to sell them to. Can we help that bakery? I don't know why we can't seem to get anymore support from the other side, because Senator Nelson and Senator LeMieux hear them.

The Governors of Michigan, Ohio, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Washington, West Virginia. Do you think these Governors would send us a letter on something such as this if they didn't need it or want it?

These Governors--Republicans and Democrats--are doing everything they can every day to keep their small businesses. But because of the deficits in their States--because of the deficits we are struggling with because President Bush left us in a terrible situation--and Democrats helped to get us in that situation as well, so I am not just blaming the other side. But when this President came in, the deficits were huge. States have to balance their budgets. The occupant of the chair knows; he was a mayor. Mayors have to balance budgets. These Governors write us and say: Please, do this lending program; it will help our small business, and we will start generating tax revenues. It will help us get out of our deficit.

You would think the other side would respond to these Governors. Evidently, they have their ears closed. Independent Bankers of Texas, Independent Bankers of Colorado, Independent Community Bankers of New Mexico, Independent Community Bankers of South Dakota, Indiana Bankers Association, Louisiana Bankers Association.

My team has been terrific at home, and we are facing a very difficult situation with this moratorium. We are working very hard to modify it and overcome it. In addition to this, we have our own problems. But for heaven's sake, our bankers and small businesspeople know they need to get capital--right now, particularly.

Maryland Bankers, National Council of Textile Organizations, National Restaurant Association, National RV Retailers, National Small Business Association, Printing Industries of America, Small Business Majority, Travel Goods Association, Women Impacting Public Policy--I could go on and on, and I will.

I would like the other side, when they come back tomorrow--I know everybody took a dinner break, and I lost my appetite, so I stayed for a while. I hope when they come tomorrow to debate this issue they will at least have the guts to hold up some associations that are opposed. I would like to know who might be opposed to this, what association.

I said I would fight for small business as the Small Business chair, and this is one of the first big fights we are going to have. It probably will not be the last. I don't know if we will win, but we are going to give it a good try.

As my colleague from Washington State said, if people are listening, I know they are finding it hard to trust things they hear in Washington. I don't blame them. It has been a tough time. I hope they can trust me and those of us who have spoken tonight to say we are trying hard to give them $30 billion, which we will leverage up to a $300 billion access to capital through their own community banks-- completely voluntary on their part--at rates that are normal. It is like they could actually borrow money at 6 and 7 and 8 percent instead of having to use their credit cards and pay 16 or 24 percent.

Evidently, there are people on the other side who like the idea that small businesses only have credit cards on which they pay very high rates. I think it is despicable. We tried to do that, and we were thwarted by them. We tried to get help on the small business credit card side, but we were told we could not interfere with private commerce. So small businesses out there are between a rock and a hard place, through no fault of their own. The equity in their homes has depleted substantially, so they cannot go take out a home equity loan.

The Republicans have made sure when they go to their credit card companies, they have to pay pretty high rates and they can't get help. Now when we offer them good loans at reasonable rates for their businesses through their own community banks they know, the Republican leadership tells us no. Maybe it is because they don't want this recession to end so they can blame President Obama and the Democrats for everything, and they can try to win the election. I hope that is not the case because small businesses should not be a pawn in the next election. We should be doing everything we can to help them.

This is a bipartisan amendment. Senator LeMieux and Senator Nelson from Florida have stood up, and I am hoping some of the other Senators on that side will stand up tomorrow and the next couple of days so we can get a good vote on this amendment and then pass the entire package.

Again, this is not a program for banks; it is a program for small businesses. It is a private sector partnership with community banks-- small banks. Big banks cannot even qualify.

If you are a big bank in America, you can turn my speech off if you are listening. If you are above $10 billion, you can't be in this. It is only for the small banks and small business. That is all this is for--a partnership of lending. It makes $1 billion over 10 years. It will earn, it will generate, so the program doesn't cost anything. It earns $1.1 billion according to CBO score. So the taxpayers get some money at the end.

But that must be just too good for some people I don't know. I am looking forward to the debate. I think I am the last person to speak tonight. I will be here early on the Senate floor tomorrow. I will be here all day tomorrow. I cannot wait for someone from the other side to come and give me either one organization that is opposed to this or one good reason they can't vote for this amendment because we are going to vote on it. We are going to vote on this amendment, and it will be very clear that the 60 people who vote for it--and maybe 39 or 40 people who vote no--or maybe we will have 62 or 63 or 64--maybe we will end up having everybody. I hope so. If all the people who have said they support this provision will call and let their Senators know, maybe we will have success.

I may not win every battle as chair of the committee. I know I haven't been able to deliver for small business all the things they would like. I know they need more tax cuts and they need more regulation relief. But I know one thing they need; they need access to capital. They don't want to have to go to Wall Street and beg for it. They don't want to have to pay 18 and 24 percent on their credit cards. They would like to walk down the street to their friendly banker whom they know and extend their line of credit.

Why anybody in this Chamber would vote against them doing that, I don't know. But we are going to find out.

Mr. President, 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 wish to speak for about 5 or 10 minutes--not very long--about an important matter before the Senate.

Mr. President, I am joined by my colleague from Oregon, Mr. Merkley, who has been a wonderful supporter of the small business package and as a member of the Banking Committee has been very instrumental in the shaping of the jobs bill 3, the small business package, that we will be debating and hopefully voting on this week.

I wish to say first that I appreciate all the work the members of the Small Business Committee have done, both Ranking Member Snowe and all the members of the committee, as well as the members of the Finance Committee who worked very hard to put a package together and the work that has come from the White House and Treasury to build a package that is paid for, fiscally responsible, and meaningful for small business in America.

There are many important pieces of the package, but one of the most significant in this very tough time for small businesses, Mr. President, which you know because I am sure you hear from your small businesses in Delaware, is that they would like some tax relief, if possible. They understand we are in a deficit. They understand it is difficult to provide tax relief, it is also difficult to cut spending, but they would like to see us respond with some targeted tax cuts to small business.

This package, I am happy to say, that Leader Reid will be presenting in the next 24 to 48 hours has $12 billion in targeted, specific tax cuts for small businesses in America, from accelerated depreciation to zero capital gains for investments made in small businesses in the next year, incentives to invest, not in the big businesses, not in the businesses on Wall Street but in the businesses that are on Main Street in all our States and all our towns, whether they be large cities or smaller cities or tiny villages throughout, whether it is Delaware or Louisiana, Texas or New York I am pleased a centerpiece of this legislation is targeted, substantial tax cuts for business.

The other very interesting piece of this bill is a whole series of things on which the small business community has worked together in a very bipartisan fashion for strengthening programs within the SBA, the Small Business Administration; it is not a very big agency, it is a small agency, but it can be muscular. If it is provided the right tools and with the right shaping of those muscles, it can be actually very effective in lifting small businesses to a better place.

With Senator Snowe's help and support, we have managed to come out with several provisions, one of which is the doubling of the loan limits for the 504 and 7(a) programs, which together have the potential to leverage about $30 billion in lending. We have reduced the fees-- eliminated the fees, actually, for banks. We have increased the guarantee from 75 percent to 90 percent. We have expanded the amount of loans, the limit, people can ask for to provide greater access to capital. It is widely popular with the small business associations, and we have their broad support.

Again, small businesses in America have seen their credit lines shrinking or evaporated. They have seen their credit card companies charging higher interest rates and demanding full payment on outstanding balances.

It is important for us to recognize that this recession is not going to end without some businesses hiring again. They do not hire on wishes and prayers. They hire on bottom-line finances and the hope that things will get better. Both are important--bottom line finances, access to capital, and the hope that things will be better. That is what this bill brings--bottom line support and hope that things can be better.

That is a big portion of our bill. Included in that is a very important component of increasing exports. When

people say in the surveys: We need to increase demand, I agree. One way we can increase demand is to open exporting opportunities for our small businesses.

I do not have it with me, but I have used it many times, a chart that shows only a small sliver that represents small businesses that export. Most of our products are exported and services sold by big companies. When people say to me: Senator, what can the Federal Government do to help open markets or to give us more customers, one thing we can do is to strengthen programs at the Federal level and the State level that give technical assistance and support for our small businesses to export. It is very important to Senator Snowe. It is very important to Senator LeMieux from Florida. It is very important to Senator Klobuchar from Minnesota, who has been a great advocate for this provision for exports, and others as well. That is in the bill.

The final piece I am going to speak about--and then I will turn it over to the Senator from Oregon, who has worked so hard on this particular proposal--is, in addition to the $12 billion in tax cuts targeted for small businesses in America, in addition to the strengthening of the SBA direct lending programs that are so important to so many colleagues on both sides of the aisle, there is a $30 billion lending program to small businesses. It is not a government program but a private sector-based lending program, using the great and powerful network of our community bankers. Not our big banks, not the Wall Street banks, not the hedge fund managers about whom we have heard so much--usually bad--but our own very familiar partners at the local level, our community banks.

This program would take $30 billion and basically pass it through to small businesses that are looking for capital. I have people come into my office, representing hundreds of small businesses, saying: Senator, we don't have the capital we need to expand, and we have been in business X number of years. If I could just get a loan for $5 million or $10 million or get a capital line for $20 million, I could expand my business.

If we do not find a way to get more money into the hands of small businesses--this is not a banking program. It is not like the old bailout program we did for banks. This is about a liftup, a helping hand to small businesses in America.

With that program, amazingly, it encourages more lending to small businesses, it is voluntary, and it actually makes money for the Federal Treasury. Again, it is voluntary. It is available to all small banks in good standing to encourage them to use this capital to lend to small businesses.

I am going to turn it over to the Senator from Oregon. Before I do, I would like to call attention to the many strong endorsements we have gotten, starting with the Conference of State Bank Supervisors:

The proposals--the Small Business Lending Fund and the

State Small Business Credit Initiative--will provide much-

needed access to capital support small business lending, the

lifeblood of our national economy.

That is Neil Milner, president and CEO of that organization.

I will read another one from John Arensmeyer, founder and CEO of Small Business Majority:

The Small Business Lending Fund will create a program that

will provide up to $30 billion in capital to smaller banks to

spur lending to small businesses and help create new jobs.

There's no ``silver bullet'' that will put small business

owners out of the financial hole . . . but these initiatives

are an important piece of the overall plan to help revive our

struggling economy. . . .

Finally, from Michael Grant, president of the National Bankers Association:

The Obama Administration--continuing its efforts to lift

the country out of a two-year recession--has hit a home run

with its proposed $30 billion Small Business Lending Fund.

This is not a bailout to small business and medium-sized

banks; it is, instead, a true investment in a brighter future

for America's working class.

Again, I turn it over to the Senator from Oregon. I thank him very much for his help in shaping this proposal, expanding it, and promoting it. It promotes itself based on its merits. We are always happy to have his voice enter this debate.

I yield the floor for my colleague.

Mr. President, I thank my colleague, and let me add a few words to that wonderful explanation. Again, what we are on the floor talking about here--the jobs 3 bill, the small business bill--is a lending program for small business. This is not a bank bailout. It is not a big bank bailout. It is not a medium-sized bank bailout, It is not a small-sized bank bailout. It is not for banks. It is for small businesses.

We are using healthy banks, not troubled banks, as a conduit to reach small businesses so they do not have to rely on high rates through a credit card company that is impersonal and not interested in their business but just the bottom line. They do not have the home equity that they used to have, as you know, either in Delaware or Louisiana or Oregon or Texas.

I think in America we want to encourage healthy relationships between our small businesses and our local banks. Only small healthy banks can participate in this voluntary program on behalf of small businesses in their communities. Ninety percent of community banks are less than $1 billion, and you can only participate in the Small Business Lending Program if you are below $10 billion. So none of the big banks can even qualify for this.

As the Senator from Oregon said, there is not going to be an end to this recession any time soon if we don't, in this Chamber, figure out a way to get low-cost capital into the hands of small business. We don't have many choices. We could issue some more credit cards to them and let them pay 15, 16, 17, 24 percent. We can ask them to go back and get equity out of their homes, which has all but dried up, and not through any fault of their own, or we could give direct lending through the Small Business Administration.

Some people have trouble with the Federal Government acting as a direct lender, and I can understand that. It is not what we do. We are not a bank. But there are banks out there--there are 8,000 community banks--many of which are healthy, and with a little bit more capital and a partnership with the Federal Government, they could turn around and lend money to businesses that desperately need it.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a list of small business organizations I received from the Small business Access to Credit Coalition.

Mr. President, I am going to read a few of these organizations into the Record at this time. This is a very market- based, private-sector approach to solving this problem, and that is why the American Apparel & Footwear Association, the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the American International Automobile Dealers Association, the Associated Builders & Contractors, Heating, Airconditioning & Refrigeration Distributers International, and we said the Independent Community Banks of America, but how about the Independent Electrical Contractors, the International Council of Shopping Centers, the Main Street Alliance, the National Association of Women Business Owners--Los Angeles, and I could go on and on and on.

There are hundreds of organizations that support this $300 billion Small Business Lending Fund. Again, it leverages up to $300 billion of potential loans to small businesses right here in America to create the jobs we need to move us out and past this recession to higher ground and happier times. We can't wait to get there, but we are not going to get there by peddling in place. We have to move forward.

This is a bold proposal, but it is very much based on common sense. It is easy to understand, with clear parameters for understanding it. It is using the great asset of community banks to

get low-cost capital into the hands of small businesses--shoe stores, retailers, cleaners, grocery stores--that can then start the hiring of one or two or three extra people. All of that is going to add up to more consumer demand. As people have paychecks, they can go spend them, increasing demand.

This is economics 101. It is very simple. It is bold, it is simple, and I believe it will work. It is voluntary. It is for healthy banks only--for community banks only. It has nothing to do with Wall Street, hedge funds or bailouts. It has everything to do with job creation on Main Street in America, and more than 100 small business organizations are supporting this initiative.

I thank the Members of the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, who have been very supportive. We are grateful for the wonderful testimony and endorsements we have received from these very powerful organizations and we look forward, after we have the vote on unemployment sometime tomorrow, to getting back to the business of ending this recession. We have all had about as much of it as we can take.

We want to move to stronger times, to happier times. We are only going to do that by giving small business substantial and targeted tax cuts and a lending program that they can work for them and the businesses they want to serve and service every day on Main Streets throughout America.

Exhibit 1

Small Business Access to Credit Coalition

(February 17, 2010)

Dear Senator: Access to credit is a critical issue facing

small businesses today. The undersigned organizations,

representing millions of small business owners in every

industry sector, were very disappointed to learn that only

one provision related to expanding small business access to

credit was included in the draft legislation offered by

Senators Baucus and Grassley, the ``Hiring Incentives to

Restore Employment Act.'' Furthermore, none of the provisions

aimed at improving the Small Business Administration (SBA)

lending programs are currently being considered in Majority

Leader Reid's latest proposal. We are concerned that if the

Senate fails to listen to the needs of small businesses and

address the credit crisis, a tremendous opportunity to help

create new, sustainable jobs in 2010 and beyond will be lost.

We urge your support for appropriations to extend the SBA

loan provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

(ARRA) through the end of December 2010. The depletion of

funds last fall is proof that the SBA programs were, and

continue to be, critically important for our nation's

creditworthy entrepreneurs. An additional $354 million in

appropriations is needed to fund the extension of the higher

guaranty percentages and waiver of borrower fees for the

balance of the fiscal year.

Additionally, we urge your support for an increase in the

maximum loan size and the maximum guaranteed portion of SBA

loans. Senators Landrieu and Snowe have introduced

legislation that would increase the maximum size of SBA 7(a)

and 504 loans from $2 million to $5 million. This legislation

would also provide a commensurate increase in the statutory

maximum guaranteed portion of SBA 7(a) loans. Moreover, the

CBO has determined that their legislation, S. 2869, will have

no impact on spending or revenue. These levels are

recommended by the Administration, have bi-partisan support

and we urge your support as well.

By including these provisions in upcoming legislation aimed

at spurring new job creation, there is the potential to

leverage an additional $16 billion in SBA lending in 2010.

According to Federal Highway Administration data, federal

spending on highway programs can generate about 34,100 jobs

for every $1 billion spent. Small businesses can generate the

same rate of job creation, except that small businesses have

the ability to create new, sustainable jobs in every local

community. Therefore, by acting on these recommendations, the

Senate will help increase small business lending that will

result in over 545,000 sustainable new jobs in the next year.

We urge you to act quickly so that we can continue to

realize the SBA lending momentum we saw in 2009. Small

businesses cannot be the engine of our economy if they

continue to face unrelentingly tight credit markets. The

Senate must include these important provisions in the job

creation bills currently pending in order to restart the flow

of credit to America's small businesses or else these

entrepreneurs will be left to sit on the sidelines.

Respectfully,

American Apparel & Footwear Association; American Bankers

Association; American Foundry Society--California

Chapter; American Hotel & Lodging Association; American

International Automobile Dealers

Association; Associated Builders & Contractors; California

Association for Micro Enterprise Opportunity; California

Association of Competitive Telecommunications Companies;

California Cast Metals Association; California Chapter of

the American Fence Contractors Association; California

Employers Association; California Fence Contractors

Association; California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce;

California Metals Coalition; California Public Arts

Association, Inc.; Council of Smaller Enterprises (Ohio);

Engineering Contractors Association; Entrepreneurs

Organization Los Angeles; Fashion Accessories Shippers

Association; Flasher/Barricade Association; Golden Gate

Restaurant Association; Greater Providence (RI) Chamber of

Commerce; Heating, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration

Distributors International; Independent Community Bankers

of America; Independent Electrical Contractors;

Independent Waste Oil Collectors and Transporters;

International Council of Shopping Centers; International

Franchise Association; Main Street Alliance; Marin

Builders' Association; Marine Retailers Association of

America; Monterey County Business Council; Napa Chamber of

Commerce; National Association for the Self-Employed;

National Association of Development Companies; National

Association of Government Guaranteed Lenders; National

Association of Manufacturers; National Association of

Women Business Owners--Inland Empire; National Association

of Women Business Owners--Los Angeles; National Automobile

Dealers Association; National Cooperative Business

Association; National Council of Chain Restaurants;

National Council of Textile Organizations; National

Federation of Filipino American Associations; National Gay

& Lesbian Chamber of Commerce; National Marine

Manufacturers Association; National Ready Mixed Concrete

Association; National Restaurant Association; National

Small Business Association; North American Die Casting

Association--California Chapter; North Carolina Bankers

Association; Northern Rhode Island Chamber of Commerce;

NPES--The Association for Suppliers of Printing,

Publishing and Converting Technologies Oakland

Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce; Oregon Small Business

for Responsible Leadership; Peninsula Builders Exchange of

California; Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors of

California; Recreation Vehicle Industry Association;

Recreational Vehicle Dealers Association; Rhode Island

Small Business Summit Committee; Sacramento Asian Chamber

of Commerce; San Francisco Builders Exchange; San

Francisco Chamber of Commerce; San Francisco Small

Business Advocates; San Francisco Small Business Network;

Small Business Association of Michigan (SBAM); Small

Business Association of New England (SBANE); Small

Business California; Small Business Majority; Small

Manufacturers Association of California; South Carolina

Small Business Chamber; Spa and Pool Industry Education

Council of California; SPI: The Plastics Industry Trade

Association; The Financial Services Roundtable; The

Hosiery Association; Travel Goods Association; Tree Care

Industry Association; Urban Solutions--San Francisco; U.S.

Chamber of Commerce; U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce.

Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I wish to recognize the career of Reverend Harry Blake, pastor of Mount Canaan Baptist Church of Shreveport, LA. After 15 years as the president of the Louisiana Missionary Baptist State Convention, Reverend Blake is retiring. He has been a friend and outstanding leader for many years.

Pastor of Mount Canaan Baptist Church for almost 44 years, Reverend Blake has also served in various capacities for a number of local and national organizations. Most recently, he was appointed vice president for the Southwest Region of the National Baptist Convention, USA, Inc., having previously served as general secretary. He has also held prominent roles in the Thirteenth District Baptist Association, and within the Louisiana Baptist State Convention, he has served on the Congress of Christian Education and the Evangelical Board.

Locally, he is involved with the Louisiana Recovery Authority Board and numerous community development initiatives, such as Grace Project Incorporated, Project UpLift, Mount Canaan Day Care Center, and Shreveport-Bossier Community Renewal. Additionally, he has served as president of the Board of Directors for both Canaan Village Apartments and Canaan Towers, dedicating himself to serving low-income, elderly, and handicapped housing needs.

In addition to these myriad roles in the local, State, and national communities, Reverend Blake has graciously played the role of educator, having lectured at Morehouse School of Divinity, Arkansas Baptist College, Leland College, Wiley College, Bishop College, L.K. Williams Ministers Institute, American Baptist College, Birmingham Bible College, United Theological Seminary, and Union Theological Seminary. Many have been inspired by his counsel and leadership for many years.

Reverend Blake's innovations within his own church should also be commended. By including various ministries as well as tutoring programs at Mount Canaan Baptist Church, Reverend Blake has developed a model prayer service which has been emulated throughout the country.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Reverend Blake has played the role of dedicated husband, father, and grandfather, raising his four children, Elizabeth, Harry II, Rodney, and Monica, with his wife Norma Jean and taking an active role in the lives of his 15 grandchildren.

I ask my colleagues to join me in congratulating Reverend Harry Blake on his distinguished 15 years of service to the Louisiana Missionary Baptist State Convention and in wishing him the best for years to come.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Samantha Seiter be granted the privilege of the floor for the debate on the floor.

Mr. President, I rise today to honor the memory of one of the Senate's giants, Robert C. Byrd. My family and I were saddened to learn of his passing on Monday morning at the age of 92. I will remember Senator Byrd as a fierce defender of the Constitution, master of Senate procedure and a proud fighter for West Virginia and its rural heritage. Senator Byrd was more than just a colleague, he was a mentor. He taught me--and everyone who had the honor of serving with him--never to apologize for standing up for your State.

During more than a half century of service in Congress, Senator Byrd gave a voice to those who would not have been heard otherwise. There are times when it is easy to get caught up in the petty bickering and partisan squabbles that seem to be increasingly plaguing this chamber. But, we would all do well to follow the example Senator Byrd set for all of us during his legendary Senate career and never lose sight of the fact that we are sent here to fight for those in our home States and across the country who cannot fight for themselves.

Senator Byrd's work on behalf of his constituents is well known. West Virginians knew they could count on their senior Senator to come here to Washington and deliver for them. They were not alone. I will never forget how helpful Senator Byrd was to my State. Louisiana lost a true friend. Through storms and floods, Senator Byrd made sure that promises made to the gulf coast, particularly to Louisiana, were not broken. He kept an eye on the fair and just distribution of funds to Gulf Coast States, and I and everyone I represent will always be grateful for his dedication to our recovery.

One critical example is his effort to provide funding for Louisiana's Road Home program. Road Home, which is the largest single housing recovery program in U.S. history, was designed to provide compensation to Louisiana homeowners whose houses were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina or Rita. In late 2007, as Louisiana faced a daunting program shortfall, it was Senator Byrd who stepped up to help me secure $3 billion to keep this rebuilding program going.

A year later, Senator Byrd once again stood up for the people of Louisiana, when he worked with me to include $8.7 billion for gulf coast hurricane recovery and protection in the emergency supplemental spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan. The funding provided for levees, criminal justice needs, health care and housing for low-income hurricane survivors.

Senator Byrd once said, ``The people of Louisiana have the strength and the spirit to rebuild their homes and their communities. We owe them the support to get the job done.'' He did not just pay lipservice to the gulf coast. He delivered for us time and again, because he understood the importance of standing up for those who were hit so hard by the tragic storms that battered the Louisiana coast.

Senator Byrd was not just a colleague who put his weight behind fighting for the gulf coast region. He was also a walking encyclopedia of Senate history, and he was always willing to impart his vast knowledge to anyone who wanted to learn about the legends that walked these halls for more than two centuries before us.

When I was first sworn in as a U.S. Senator, back in 1997, my entire family came to Washington for the event. After it was over, I asked Senator Byrd if he would give my family--both adults and children--a history lesson on the Senate. He graciously obliged, and for 2 full hours spoke eloquently and expertly on the history of this great body. His lecture left a lasting impression on every single member of the Landrieu family, and it is a memory we will always cherish.

Senator Byrd spoke with such passion about John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Rebecca Felton, Everett Dirksen and the many other historical figures who shaped the Senate. It is only appropriate that he will forever be mentioned in the same breath with these men and women he so truly admired. And, it makes me proud to have had the opportunity to serve with a man who left such an indelible mark on this Chamber.

As we reflect on Senator Byrd's remarkable life and career, our prayers are with the Byrd family. But we all take comfort in knowing that while he leaves behind one of his great loves--the Senate--he is finally going home to be with his greatest love--Erma.